


Assumption of Risk

by mangochi



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lawyers, BDSM, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:28:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2464943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk is a little worried about the hard-ass reputation of his boss when he takes a job as a paralegal, but he soon learns that there’s more than just bark when it comes to Leonard McCoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bdsm Lawyer AU is something I never thought I'd write, but here I am and here it is.

"Don’t look him in the eye," the secretary says, patting absently at her pile of blonde hair as she talks. "Keep your tone polite, but interested—not too detached, or he’ll think you’re getting bored, and for Christ’s sake, don’t you have glasses?"

Jim deliberately stops squinting and blinks apologetically. “My cat broke them this morning.”

"He hates cats," the secretary says mournfully, with the air of announcing that someone important and possibly even notable has passed away. "Try not to bring that up."

"Oh." Jim glances at the firmly shut door beside the secretary’s desk. He can make out the slightly blurry letters embossed in the dark wood: LEONARD H. MCCOY.

His stomach clenches nauseatingly and he fervently wishes that he didn’t have that croissant this morning.

"You’ll do fine," the secretary says, clearly recognizing that she’s done more harm than good despite her intentions, and she smiles reassuringly. "Mr. McCoy is less of a hardass than he pretends to be—"

The phone on her desk rings and she reaches down to pick it up.

"Yes, sir," she says. "I’ll send him right in."

Jim fidgets with his shirt cuffs, then catches himself and drops his hands to his sides again.

The secretary sets down the phone and gives him a bracing nod. “Call him ‘sir’ or ‘Mr. McCoy’,” she advises, then waves him through the door with a brief, “Good luck, Mr. Kirk.”

Jim swallows, adjusts his tie anxiously, before patting down his jacket and entering. The door’s heavier than he expects, and he braces it against his shoulder, peering warily around the edge.

He glimpses the corner of a desk, edged in sunlight from the window behind it, the glint of plaques and frames hanging on the cream walls.

"C’mon in," says a voice, gruff and impatient, and Jim quickly squeezes into the office, the door shutting with a definitive click behind him.

He raises his eyes apprehensively to the man behind the desk, and when he looks upon Leonard McCoy, his breath catches in his throat from more than nervousness.

McCoy sits in his high leather chair like a king on his throne, his broad shoulders emphasized by the precise cut of his suit, his tie a slash of dark green silk accenting his hazel eyes. Every strand of his dark hair lies perfectly in place, his mouth frowning above his square jaw, and his gaze pierces right through Jim, pinning him to the spot.

"You Kirk?"

Jim starts, takes an uncertain step forward, and pauses again. “Yes…sir.”

McCoy drums his fingers on his desk—no wedding band, Jim notices distractedly. “Come closer, kid. I don’t bite.”

 _Don’t look him in the eye_ , Jim abruptly remembers, and he drops his eyes to the carpet as he shuffles forward.

"So you’re my new assistant, Mr. Kirk?" McCoy doesn’t sound exactly reproachful, more evaluating than anything else, and Jim stares somewhere decidedly southwest of those intent eyes.

"Jim," he says automatically, then bites his tongue in horror. Shit, he shouldn’t have—

"Jim," McCoy says slowly, and Jim feels like he’s going to pass out.

 _Don’t fire me don’t fire me don’t fire me_ —

"All right," McCoy says, with a nonchalant flick of his shoulder. "I can do that."

Jim’s completely and utterly gobsmacked, and he gawks openly at McCoy for a few seconds before he tries to regain his composure. “I—I didn’t—”

McCoy rolls his eyes, and there’s something akin to reluctant amusement in the glare he throws at the door. “Christine’s got you on the fence, hasn’t she? I swear, that woman does it on purpose to piss me off.”

Jim’s mind goes blank and he opens his mouth helplessly. “Ah.”

"I’m not going to eat you alive, kid, Jesus Christ." McCoy squints at him, cocks his head a little. "Something wrong with your eyes?"

"Um, I. No." Jim raises a hand self-consciously, touches the skin beneath his left eye. "My glasses broke this morning." He’s proud that he manages to leave out the cat.

"Hmm." McCoy studies him briefly, then opens a drawer and rummages about. "They’re not too bad, are they? Your eyes."

"N-No. No, sir." Jim watches, mystified, as McCoy produces a sleek black glasses case.

"Here," McCoy says, holding out a pair of glasses that look at least three times as expensive as Jim’s own cheap wire frames. "They’re my old reading glasses. Should at least keep you from running into a wall."

"I can’t," Jim protests, aghast at the thought. "Sir, they’re yours—"

"I said they’re my old ones, didn’t I?" McCoy waves the glasses threateningly. "Now take the damn things and try them on."

Jim jumps, then takes the glasses, hoping that his fingers aren’t shaking too badly when they brush against McCoy’s. The glasses are a little too loose on his face, and he pushes them up the bridge of his nose, peering hesitantly through the lenses.

"Oh," he says, surprised, and McCoy’s smug expression swims clearly into view.

"How’s that?" McCoy asks, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself, and Jim nods, the glasses sliding down a little again.

"Very good, sir. Thank you." He blinks at McCoy and realizes he probably should have left the glasses off.

McCoy studies him for a moment, gives a single nod, and moves on briskly. “Your desk is there,” he says, pointing at an empty tabletop across the room. “I expect you to be there at eight thirty every morning, barring a medical emergency or pre-scheduled absence. Take those up with Christine, I don’t wanna know about it unless it’s got something to do with the current caseload.”

Jim barely has time to nod before McCoy’s shoving a leather portfolio at him. “Are these…?”

“Welcome to your first day, Jim,” McCoy says, with a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s get to work.”

All in all, it’s not as bad as Jim expected, but it’s certainly…different. McCoy leaves him alone for the most part, looking up from his computer only to bark at Jim to fetch him a particular file from the cabinets or to search the floor to ceiling bookshelves for a case summary from 2006. When Jim’s at his desk, he’s sorting through paperwork, signing off on release forms and answering phone calls. Light work that doesn’t challenge him too much, but he’s too busy with feeling relieved that McCoy isn’t a complete dictator to be disgruntled.

At one, McCoy glances up at Jim and seems surprised to see him there. “You still here, kid?”

Jim looks over, his neck aching from being hunched over his work. “Sir?”

“Your lunch break was an hour ago,” McCoy informs him. “Didn’t I say?”

Jim thinks back desperately. “No, sir, I don’t think so.”

McCoy sighs grievously, which Jim doesn’t think is quite fair. His traitorous stomach chooses that very second to make its complaints known, and Jim sits there frozen, one hand clamped to his belly like it’ll do anything to suppress the noise.

Across the room, McCoy’s eyebrow arches upwards. “Nice.”

“Sorry,” Jim mutters, glancing away, and McCoy snorts.

“Nothing to be sorry about.” He stands abruptly from his desk and stretches, the crack of his spine audible from where Jim’s seated. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Jim hesitates, wondering panickedly if he’s somehow forgotten an appointment already. “Go…?”

“To lunch, dumbass,” McCoy tosses something across the room and Jim catches it automatically. “You’re driving.”

Jim opens his hand and gawks openly at the keys in his palm. “Mr. McCoy, I can’t—”

“I’ll be napping,” McCoy says dismissively. “Not a scratch, you hear?”

………………….

It turns out that McCoy was dead serious about napping, and Jim glances over at him for the fifth time since they pulled out of the parking garage.

The man’s leaning back in repose, his hands folded over his stomach and a pair of Ray-Bans covering his eyes. His mouth’s fallen slightly open in unconsciousness, but somehow he manages to look even more intimidating while asleep, and Jim stops checking on him after a while.

Instead, he follows the GPS directions to a restaurant name McCoy barked out before reclining his seat. It’s a small cafe by the harbor, Jim’s surprised to see, homey and distinctly kitschy. Nothing that he expected someone like McCoy to enjoy.

He’s going as far as to double-checking the address he input when McCoy wakes with a start, knocking his sunglasses off his face and blinking flusteredly. “Wha…we there?”

Jim blinks at him, caught off guard. The place has  _flower boxes_ , for God’s sake. “Ah.”

"Excellent," McCoy says, focusing through the windshield. "We  _are_ here.”

"Are we?" Jim looks out his window doubtfully.

“Come on.” McCoy cranks his seat up again and opens his door, stretching again in the sunlight with a groan. Jim watches him for a second, briefly distracted as the corner of McCoy’s shirt untucks from the back of his slacks, then shakes his head hard and gets out of the car.

Scotty’s, McCoy informs him as they cross the street, is indeed owned by a Scotty and his associate, a surly man behind the receptionist stand that startles Jim when he hops down from his stool and immediately disappears before trotting out from behind the stand. The guy must be four feet tall, max, scowling beadily up at Jim.

“You stop that, Keenser!” yells a red-haired man in a flowery apron that Jim presumes correctly to be Scotty. “Rude, that is.” He peers over curiously at Jim, then nods at McCoy. “Afternoon, Len.”

“Scotty.” McCoy chooses a table for two in the otherwise unoccupied room and pulls out a chair for Jim, who tries his best to hide his surprise at the gesture. “Busy day as usual, I see.”

“Full house last night,” Scotty confides cheerfully, winking at Jim as he sets down a pitcher of water on their table.

“Scotty’s doubles as a bar Friday nights,” McCoy explains. “Usually rakes in enough revenue to cover a week.”

“We’ve got our fair share o’ regulars,” Scotty protests, affronted. “Don’t we, Keenser?”

The little man glances over at them wordlessly and shrugs.

“Bastard,” Scotty says absently. “What’ll it be for you today, laddies?”

McCoy orders for the both of them, while Jim looks around the cafe curiously. The walls seem to be randomly painted, teal splatters on yellow and sometimes the reverse, reds and purples and oranges swirling together to give in the impression that they’re sitting in an abstract painting, or the manifestation of a brilliant mind with too much time on their hands.

“See those?” McCoy says, his voice low and unexpectedly close, and Jim glances at him in surprise. McCoy’s leaning towards him across the table, nodding past Jim at the framed photographs on the wall. “That’s Scotty’s real passion right there.”

There’s three frames, two of them angled shots of vintage automobiles, half the framework lovingly stripped and the parts meticulously laid out on the ground beside the body. The third is a pencil sketch of an engine with what looks suspiciously like a coffee stain across one corner, labelled by cramped, angled handwriting.

“That’s me,” McCoy says, nodding at the third. “The idiot burned himself on the coffee and asked me to write the labels in.”

“You like cars?” Jim asks, surprised yet again.

McCoy shrugs, playing with a drop of condensation that’s dripped from the pitcher to the table. “Sometimes you get tired’a people. Cars are just as complex, but less…demanding.” He glances up wryly at Jim. “Is that strange?”

“No,” Jim blurts out, realizing too late how informal that sounded. “No…sir, it’s not.”

McCoy snorts, peering at Jim in amusement. “For God’s sake, kid, we’re not in the office. You can drop the ‘sir’. Makes me feel like my grandfather.”

Jim opens his mouth, flustered, and is relieved to see Scotty banging out of the kitchen with their food. It’s possibly one of the worst sandwiches he’s ever eaten in his life, but sitting in a kaleidoscope of color, listening to the one-sided banter between Scotty and Keenser, he starts to understand why it’s McCoy’s favorite place.

They finish and McCoy drives them back, grumbling absently as he readjusts the seat, and Jim sits nervously in the passenger seat, unsure if he’s allowed to touch anything other than the seat belt.

By the time they get back, he’s convinced that McCoy should never drive anywhere ever again, even if Jim has to become his personal chauffeur. For a lawyer fully aware of the legal repercussions, McCoy drives like a selectively blind man, ignoring almost every sign and blowing past two red lights before miraculously delivering them to the garage.

Jim tries to hide his wobbly legs when he climbs out, regretting eating as much as he did, while McCoy obliviously leads the way to the elevators, whistling cheerily under his breath.

Christine gives them an odd look as they pass and Jim shrugs helplessly when she raises an eyebrow.

The rest of the day carries on in the same veins as the morning, and Jim’s almost surprised when four o’clock comes around. McCoy’s the first to stir, glancing at his watch, then out the window.

“You live close to the office, kid?”

“What?” Jim freezes, halfway through wiping off the lenses of his glasses, and he blinks at McCoy. “Me?”

“No, the other kid,” McCoy says dryly. “Try and keep up.”

“I, uh. Close enough,” Jim answers, feeling oddly disoriented. Talking to McCoy always seems to give him that odd flutter in his stomach, like he’s missed a step going downstairs. “I take the bus.”

“Hmm.” McCoy taps his fingers on his desk contemplatively. “You hungry for French?”

“Hungry?” Jim repeats. “No, not now. We just ate—”

“I meant later,” McCoy waves his hand dismissively, and Jim’s briefly mesmerized by the impatient flick of his fingers, the heavy silver ring on McCoy’s pinky finger flashing in the sunlight. “You ever been to Saldana?”

Jim fumbles the glasses and manages to catch them before they bounce off the surface of the desk. “ _Saldana_? Isn’t that the—don’t they take reservations three months in advance?”

“The owner owes me a favor,” McCoy shrugs. “Helped out with some legal issues a few years back when they were opening. So what do you say?”

Jim blinks again at the sudden turn in conversation. “Say?”

“Dinner,” McCoy explains patiently, like he’s trying to communicate with a particularly dense child. “Tonight. At Saldana.”

“With…” Jim trails off uncertainly, not sure whether to presume.

“With me.” McCoy peers at him scrutinizingly. “Unless you have other plans?”

“No,” Jim hears himself say, his mind blissfully and tragically blank from shock. “No, I’m free tonight.”

“Excellent,” McCoy says briskly, like it’s never really been a question at all. “I’ll see you at seven.”

Jim takes that as his cue to leave, and he gathers his things quickly, not sure where to look. He can feel McCoy’s gaze on him, heavy and insistent, and Jim’s face is burning by the time he mumbles an unintelligible goodbye and flees out the door.

Christine glances up at him absently, then does a double take and leans forward intently. “How’d it go?” she whispers, and Jim stares back at her.

“We’re having dinner,” he finally says, still dazed, and Christine’s eyebrow shoots to her hairline in an impressive show of endurance.

“You don’t say,” she says, and Jim wanders out into the hallway, even more perplexed than before.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to go. He  _does_ , maybe a little too much, and that’s the damn problem. McCoy’s got a pull to him, a gravity that Jim doesn’t know if he can escape. And he doesn’t know if he wants to.

………………….

Jim shows up thirty minutes early at Saldana’s gilded doors in a deliberately casual outfit, more out of nervousness than any anal obsession with timeliness, and shuffles awkwardly in the lobby until the hostess takes pity on him and waves him over.

“Do you have a reservation?” she asks, glancing down at her list, and Jim flounders.

“I, ah., no, but maybe… maybe there’s one under McCoy?” He pushes his hands nervously in his pockets, rocks back and forth on his heels while she checks. “I’m meeting someone here,” he says, aware that he’s rambling, but too out of his depth to be charming. “McCoy, that is. Leonard McCoy, maybe it’s under that—”

“McCoy, you said?” She looks up at him expectantly, and Jim nods hesitantly. “Mr. McCoy arrived a few minutes ago, sir. I believe we’ve seated him in the center of the salon.”

 _Salon_ , Jim thinks wildly.  _It’s a fucking_ salon _._ He doesn’t even think he knows the actual definition of a salon, but now the lady’s peering at him encouragingly, and so he nods and heads on through.

The room is gently lit by crystal chandeliers hanging overhead, bright enough to see clearly and warm enough to lend to the atmosphere. As far as he can tell, all of the round tables are occupied, mostly by couples, and by the time he spots McCoy at a table in the middle of the room, his nerves are already shot.

And God, the man looks  _good_ , slouching comfortably in his chair with an arm propped on the table and his left ankle crossed over his right knee, the white dress shirt beneath his suit jacket unbuttoned and loosened at the neck. Jim can catch fleeting glimpses of bare skin when McCoy shifts forward, a glint of metal from a thin chain around his neck, and fuck, the shadow of chest hair just barely peeking out from behind the open collar.

He sees Jim and smiles, that in itself nearly knocking Jim flat on his ass. McCoy looks…different, like this. Softer, less dazzling, and yet Jim still can’t string two sentences together in his presence.

“Jim,” McCoy says, his smile widening, and Jim sends up a silent prayer for endurance as he takes a seat across from him. “You’re early.”

“So are you,” Jim mumbles. There’s a goddamn candle on the table, he notices with an edge of hysteria. And oh God, rose petals on the tablecloth—

“Thought I’d go ahead and make sure everything was all right with the reservation,” McCoy says dismissively. “It wasn’t any trouble. You look good,” he adds, and Jim’s heart stumbles. “I did the liberty of ordering already. Hope you don’t mind.” McCoy leans forward as he speaks and Jim abruptly forgets what he was going to say.

“No, um. I. That’s fine.” Jim pats awkwardly at his black t-shirt, tugs his leather jacket over it self-consciously. “I feel underdressed, to be honest.” He laughs nervously and McCoy’s eyes crinkle— why are they  _crinkling_ —

“We’re not at the office right now.”

Jim blinks. “No, we’re not.”

McCoy’s still watching him, the corner of his mouth quirked in amusement. “Are you always this jumpy or should I be feeling special?”

Jim starts to answer, then hesitates. “No?” he answers uncertainly, wondering if there’s a right answer or if he’s just being screwed with.

“I’ve read your recommendation from Pike, you know,” McCoy says conversationally. “Three times. Says he found you after a bar fight gone wrong and ended up writing you a letter for law school. It’s a very fairy tale happy ending.”

“What’s this, an interrogation now?” Jim asks defensively, and McCoy’s eyes light up.  _Shit_.

“That’s more like it,” McCoy says, something a little odd in his voice that Jim can’t quite identify. “You never seemed like the quiet type to me.”

Jim stares at him, his mouth open, and is at an utter loss for words.

Thankfully, the waiter arrives with a bottle of wine, and he allows himself to be distracted by the red-gowned woman who promptly swoops in and plucks the bottle from the hapless waiter’s hand.

“ _Non_ , Henri, I thought I said it was the Château-Grillet for Mr. McCoy and his friend?” The woman waves the bottle around indignantly before pushing it back towards the waiter and waving him away. “Bring the right one this time, that’s a dear. He’s new,” she confides, as soon as the waiter departs. “A bit lacking, but what can I say, he’s a friend’s nephew.”

“Uhura,” McCoy says, grinning up at her. “Lovely as always. You didn’t have to bring out the Château-Grillet.”

Uhura makes an unattractive noise that somehow manages to work for her. “The place would hardly exist without you, Leonard. Only the best for you and your friend.” She eyes Jim interestedly, who straightens up and tries not to gawk.

“Jim Kirk,” he says. “ _Je suis enchantée de te connaître_.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Uhura laughs delightedly. “ _Ce gentilhomme._ ”

Jim glances over at McCoy self-consciously, only to find the man regarding him with great interest.

“By all means,” McCoy says, when he sees Jim looking. “Continue.”

Uhura smiles fondly, runs a hand through McCoy’s hair before settling it on his shoulder. “Don’t mind him, Jim. Leonard’s never had the tongue for languages.”

Jim stoically resists thinking about McCoy’s tongue and forces a polite smile. “Is that so?”

“Spanish,” McCoy says, looking pained. “I can manage a bit of Spanish. You pick up a few things in Georgia.”

Jim watches as McCoy and Uhura ease into easy repartee, listens to their low laughter and tries not to look at the bob of McCoy’s throat when he throws his head back and laughs heartily. It’s the first time Jim’s really heard him laugh, and he realizes just how much more relaxed McCoy is outside of the office.

The Château-Grillet is inevitably good, fruity with notes of honey and apricot, and Jim finds that after a couple of glasses, everything is that much better and warmer, McCoy’s smile a little brighter and the knot in Jim’s stomach noticeably looser.

Uhura eventually wanders off to attend to other business elsewhere in the restaurant, and McCoy finally indulges in the story of how he once represented Saldana in a lawsuit three years ago against a disgruntled and unfortunately affluent patron. Uhura ended up with a monetary settlement with enough zeros to upgrade the then bar to the present culinary landmark, complete with new chandeliers.

“Sometimes I miss the bar,” McCoy confides after their entree arrives. Jim’s not entirely sure what it is, having missed the pronunciation when he watched McCoy’s lips instead of listening to his words, but it’s as good as he expected and he has no doubt that it’s partly due to the company. “It was this dark, private place downtown. Had a jazz band on weekends and Nyota sang. She’s got a lovely voice, if she likes you enough to let you hear it.”

“Nyota?” Jim murmurs absently, distracted by a freckle at the base of McCoy’s throat that he’s only just noticed.

McCoy pauses, chuckles ruefully as he lifts his glass. “Don’t tell Uhura I let it slip. She sees it as a privilege.”

And now Jim has to ask, before it itches away at his insides any further. He plays with his fork, flips over a piece of perfectly seared fish and hesitates. “Are you and…is she…?”

“Me and Uhura?” McCoy asks, surprised. “No, nothing like that.” He seems briefly entertained at the thought, and Jim feels both relieved and mortified.

“Oh,” is all he manages to say, and he tosses back the rest of his wine as a celebratory toast to himself.

For all of Jim’s fumbling, conversation flows with a surprising ease. McCoy brings Jim up to speed on a couple of their current cases before regaling him with a few particularly memorable cases in the past, and by the time he gets to the hearing with a donkey as a witness, Jim’s boneless from laughing and hiccuping as he tries to recover.

And McCoy watches him all the while, that faint smile on his lips that makes Jim want to do stupid, crazy things.

Uhura inevitably returns and waves away the bill, to which McCoy seems to agree until she leaves and Jim catches him slipping a hundred dollar bill under his plate with a wry smile. “Don’t tell,” he says, eyes sparkling, and Jim finds himself grinning back dazedly.

“I’ll walk you home,” McCoy offers as they leave, and Jim’s too plied with wine and good will and the color of McCoy’s eyes in the candlelight to refuse. If they end up walking a little too closely together on the sidewalk, arms brushing together every other step, he figures that can be blamed on the wine, too.

It’s a good five minutes to his apartment from Saldana by bus, twenty on foot, and Jim finds himself passing the bus stop without a second look, even when the bus itself rattles past them seconds later.

He doesn’t remember much of what they talk about, just the soothing wash of McCoy’s voice, the way his laugh dissolves into breathy chuckles at the end, the way he ducks his head to hide a smile when Jim points out something particularly ridiculous, his inhibitions embarrassingly lowered. McCoy likes to talk with his hands, the ring on his pinky flashing whenever he makes an overly large gesture, and Jim follows the arc of his fingers with fascination.

He’s nothing if not fascinating, Leonard McCoy, and nothing else has ever drawn Jim’s attention like this. Like a moth to flame, a star to a black hole. He stops thinking there before he can think of any more ultimately destructive analogies and focuses instead on putting one foot in front of the other without faceplanting the pavement.

Unfortunately, they do finally end up at his apartment, and Jim finds himself wishing he took a left three blocks back instead of a right.

“So, this is it,” McCoy says, looking up at the building, and Jim has to forcibly restrain himself from asking him to come in, to make himself at home, to…to…

His mind peters out and he ends up nodding wordlessly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I had a good night tonight,” McCoy says softly, and Jim swallows, glancing over helplessly. McCoy’s watching him, his shirt buttoned back up haphazardly against the night chill, one of them misaligned and showing a gap around his collarbones.

“Yeah,” Jim answers, and he realizes it’s true even as he says it. “Yeah, me too. It was fun.”

McCoy grins at him, his face glowing under the streetlights, one hand in his jacket pocket and the other hanging by his side. He reaches out before Jim can stop him and touches Jim’s waist, pulling him a step closer and leaning in. Jim feels McCoy’s warm breath on his skin, the brush of stubble when McCoy turns his face towards him.

“See you tomorrow,” McCoy murmurs, his lips just barely touching Jim’s cheek, and it sets Jim’s chest ablaze. “Kid.” He gives Jim a cheerful pat on his ass before pulling away, and Jim soon finds himself standing stunned and alone on his doorstep, watching McCoy disappear jauntily down the street, whistling snatches of the same tune as when they arrived back at the office after lunch.

It looks like this job will be more interesting than he thought, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Jim spends twenty minutes picking out a tie, brushes his hair instead of the hasty finger-comb he usually settles for, then stares at himself in the mirror and tells his reflection that he’s being an idiot.

Doc stares at him reproachfully from the end of the hall, his striped tail flicking impatiently, and Jim glances over wryly. “Sorry, bud,” he says, bending to refill the cat’s food bowl. “Daddy’s a moron.”

He deliberately doesn’t show up early to work, loitering uncomfortably in the hallway until two minutes before eight-thirty before bursting through the door. Christine eyes him for a moment, then jerks her head towards McCoy’s closed door. Something about her expression doesn’t bode well, and Jim pauses uneasily before entering.

McCoy looks up at him when he enters, looking as immaculate as the first time Jim saw him twenty-four hours ago. “You’re here.”

“Sir,” Jim answers, setting his briefcase down on his desk. “Good morning.”

“Mm. What time is it, Jim?” McCoy asks, and Jim hesitates uncertainly.

“Eight-thirty.”

“Early is on time, Kirk, remember that,” McCoy says, looking at Jim closely. “You’ll learn.”

Jim frowns slightly, sensing some deeper meaning behind the words, but it’s too early and he’s not caffeinated enough to muster out an answer, so he nods and sits down instead.

It’s then that he notices the glasses case in front of him, the same case McCoy had from yesterday. “Sir,” he begins, looking up questioningly, and finds McCoy still watching him.

“Had them resized for you,” McCoy says nonchalantly, steepling his fingers in front of his chin. There’s a hint of the McCoy from last night in the edges of his smile as he regards Jim. “It seems a shame, having them go to waste like that.”

Jim opens the case and sees the glasses, newly wiped and all but tied up in a big red bow on top of the soft cleaning cloth. “I can’t take this,” he says instantly. “It’s too much. I—”

“It’s a pair of glasses,” McCoy says. “Hardly the Taj Mahal.”

“But—” Jim splutters, the glasses glittering up at him innocuously. “Sir, I can’t—”

“You will,” McCoy tells him firmly, and Jim blinks hard. He looks down helplessly at the glasses and determinedly doesn’t think about what it all means.

“Thank you,” he says resignedly, and he thinks he sees McCoy’s smile widen for a split second.

“I’ve been told to pass on a message from Nyota,” McCoy says, fastidiously straightening a pile of papers in his outbox. “You’re welcome at Saldana at any time, provided you give her enough time to clear a table.”

“Oh,” Jim says, surprised. “I… that’s really too kind of her—”

“Anything for a friend,” McCoy says dismissively, like they didn’t just meet yesterday. Like he didn’t take Jim out to lunch and dinner and all but kiss him goodnight on his doorstep.

Like he’s not Jim’s brand new boss who just gave him a two-hundred-dollar pair of glasses without batting an eye.

He’s so fucking screwed.

This time, when lunchtime rolls around, Jim catches McCoy’s keys without blinking and tries not to watch too closely when McCoy rolls his shirtsleeves up his elbows, his forearms flexing when he folds his jacket and drapes it over the back of his seat. “Let’s go, kid.”

“Scotty’s again?” Jim asks expectantly, as he slides into the driver’s seat of McCoy’s spotless Jaguar.

McCoy considers their reflections in the windshield before pursing his lips thoughtfully. “Figured we’d try something new today.”

Jim thinks that he should probably be more apprehensive than excited at those words.

………………….

Ultimately, the harbor isn’t what he expects.

Jim stands at the guard rail, gazing blankly out at the rippling waters as seagulls cluster noisily overhead and salty wind musses his hair, flipping his tie carelessly over his shoulder. Behind him, McCoy’s ordering their lunch from what he swears is the best hot dog stand on the pier, despite its identical appearance to the dozens of hot dog stands for blocks around.

Somehow, McCoy didn’t strike Jim as the kind of guy who eats hot dogs, at least not by choice, and he’s forced to reevaluate his view of the man yet again. At this rate, he probably shouldn’t bother even trying to fit McCoy into a box.

Jim turns when he feels a brisk tap on his elbow, and finds himself face-to-face with his triumphant boss. “Here,” McCoy says, blinking as the wind sweeps his hair into his eyes, and he offers Jim a foil-wrapped package. “Yours.”

Jim takes the hot dog, juggling it from hand to hand to keep from getting burned. “You know your way around pretty well,” he ventures to comment, as they stroll slowly along the walkway. “Judge Pike told me that you’ve only just recently moved here.”

McCoy’s already well on his way to demolishing his lunch, thumbing thoughtfully at a mustard stain by the corner of his mouth as he glances at Jim. “Why the curiosity?” McCoy licks absently at his thumb, and Jim’s eyes flicker instantly to the movement before he looks away again quickly, focusing on unwrapping his hot dog.

“No reason.”

“Jesus, kid, loosen up,” McCoy snorts. “It’s a bit of a boring story, is all.”

Jim waits, but when it becomes evident that McCoy’s not going to continue without being prompted, he clears his throat. “I don’t mind.”

To his surprise, McCoy laughs aloud at his statement, his eyes crinkling distractedly in genuine amusement. “‘I don’t mind’, he says,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “You’re strange, you know that?”

Jim frowns, unsure how to take that, but then McCoy’s shoulder bumps gently against his.

“I like strange,” McCoy says unexpectedly, and Jim’s thrown for another loop yet again.

The only thing left to do, really, is to eat his hot dog, and so he does. It’s the best damn hot dog he’s ever had, only made better by the fact that McCoy’s shoulder presses briefly against his with every step.

On one side of Jim is the changeable ocean, sparkling and blue and dotted with white sails towards the open water, and on his other side is McCoy, grounding and matter-of-fact in his gestures, his speech. The wind tousles his hair and Jim’s fingers itch with the inexplicable urge to brush it into place, but watching McCoy’s fingers comb through the errant strands are just as satisfying.

“I moved here in June,” McCoy suddenly says, crumpling up his hot dog wrapper and weighing the ball in his hand thoughtfully. “Followed my ex and my daughter here from Georgia on a goddamn whim, and ended up staying for good. Scotty and Uhura came with the job, and the hot dog stand… that was just pure dumb luck.”

It’s a more normal reason than Jim expected, but McCoy said as much already. “That’s not boring,” Jim says. “I think it’s great, wanting to be with your kid.” He catches himself too late, and crams the rest of his hot dog in his mouth to avoid answering the unvoiced question in McCoy’s glance.

“Yeah, well,” McCoy eventually says, lobbing his wrapper perfectly into a trashcan as they pass. “It’s not completely selfless. I’ve always had a hard time letting things go.”

Jim’s heart skips a beat, and he’s finding it increasingly hard to meet McCoy’s eyes with every second they spend together. “That’s not always a bad thing,” he says, and he has no idea why the hell he does.

McCoy doesn’t answer until they’re almost at the end of the walkway, the ocean stretching out in front of them. The wind’s stronger here, and Jim flinches when his tie slaps him in his face. When he manages to wrestle the strip of fabric down, McCoy’s watching him, his lips parted unconsciously and his eyes narrowed against the breeze. It’s not a particularly bad look on him, Jim muses distractedly. He only halfheartedly attempts to smother the thought before it forms.

McCoy leans slightly closer, and Jim’s mind blanks for a split second before McCoy reaches out and takes his tie between two fingers, smoothing it out and tucking the end into Jim’s chest pocket. His hand lingers on the silk, giving it a final pat before pulling away that Jim feels throughout every inch of his body.

McCoy pauses then, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the nearby sounds of pedestrians and the choppy crash of waves against the docks. “We should be getting back,” he says. “The McCulloch trial’s coming up in a couple of weeks.”

“Yes, sir,” Jim replies, feeling like he’s avoided a bullet of some kind…and he’s oddly disappointed at the thought.

………………….

It’s not that Jim doesn’t know what’s happening, or at least, he thinks he does. It’s not hard to tell what McCoy’s trying to do, though the  _why_ part is still giving Jim some trouble. Most people, he decides, don’t try to immediately befriend their legal assistants within forty-eight hours of acquaintance, much less wine and dine them and buy them hot dogs for lunch.  

Except that it doesn’t quite feel like McCoy’s trying to deliberately become his friend. Rather, it seems like a side objective en route to the much larger goal, which Jim hasn’t managed to decipher yet. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that McCoy wants something from him, except what would a guy like him want from someone like Jim?

It’s enough to give him a small headache, and he rubs absently at the base of his skull as he squints at his computer monitor. Across the room, he can hear the steady tapping of McCoy’s keyboard, a constant litany that’s begun to lull him into a state of placidity.

The throbbing eventually makes its way to his temples, taking up residence behind his eyes, and Jim makes a small noise of discomfort. McCoy’s typing halts.

“You all right?”

Jim jerks his hand away from his neck self-consciously, placing it back on his mouse. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

McCoy arches an unconvinced eyebrow. “Is something bothering you?”

“No,” Jim begins, then hesitates ruefully at McCoy’s constipated expression. “A bit of a headache, sir. Nothing major.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” McCoy places his hands on his desk and pushes himself to his feet. Jim scoots away instinctively as McCoy circles around and heads towards him purposefully.

“Sir…?” Jim squeaks, craning his head around when McCoy steps behind him. “What—?”

“Relax,” McCoy’s voice sounds from above him. “People used to pay me for massages in law school, you know. Magic hands.” He says the last with a bit of humor, but all it does is make Jim vividly aware of McCoy’s fingers, his knuckles, down to every inch of his square palms.  _Fuck_.

Jim looks down to avoid accidentally glancing up into McCoy’s face, his hands twining nervously in his lap. “You… you really don’t have to…”

“Tell me to stop,” McCoy says, his voice low and serious, “and I will, Jim.”

Jim stares confusedly at his knees, his heart hammering and his skin tingling in anticipation. He swears he can feel the warmth of McCoy’s skin, the prickle of his fingerprints even though McCoy hasn’t even touched him yet. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head once, but it’s not a refusal.

He thinks he hears McCoy’s breath hitch quietly before the man shifts behind him, and Jim feels McCoy’s hands against his shoulders. They’re heavier and hotter than Jim expected, and he can’t fully suppress a shiver when McCoy digs the heels of his palms against the top of Jim’s spine, his fingers tugging lightly at his collar to loosen it.

“Relax,” McCoy instructs, and Jim tries, clenching his hands around his kneecaps and sucking in shaky breaths as McCoy works his way slowly up Jim’s neck, his thumbs rubbing soothingly at the knots he finds. “That’s good. You’re doing great, kid.”

And Jim does find himself relaxing after a while, caught in the tide of McCoy’s voice as McCoy patiently squeezes and kneads at the back of his skull. In the end, Jim’s so loose, so unguarded, that when McCoy’s fingers slide into his hair to get his skull, he lets out a soft moan of satisfaction.

McCoy stops for a split second, just long enough for Jim to realize his error, and he’s flushing in embarrassment by the time McCoy starts moving again, slower this time.

“You like that?” McCoy murmurs, his voice deeper than before, and Jim blinks several times in mortification.

“Mmm,” he manages, barely keeping it from dissolving into a groan when McCoy grazes a spot that numbs him pleasantly from head to toe. “God, that’s amazing.”

“That so,” McCoy says, amused, and Jim flushes.

“Sorry, I—”

“Don’t be.” McCoy rubs at the spot again, massaging Jim’s scalp gently. “Told ya I was good.”

Jim grunts softly, drops his chin to his chest and urges the lazy coil of pleasure in his gut to leave him alone. “Sorry… can’t pay you…” he mumbles, not quite sure what he’s saying anymore, and McCoy chuckles quietly.

Silence settles in after a few seconds, but it’s a comfortable state and Jim finds himself almost dozing by the time McCoy’s fingertips reach his temples.

“You like classical music?” McCoy asks offhandedly, apropos of nothing. It takes Jim a few seconds to register the question, and he opens his eyes reluctantly.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve got a couple tickets for the symphony tonight,” McCoy says. “Won ‘em at a raffle last weekend. It’d be a waste of a perfectly good ticket to go by myself, so figured I might— Well, you’re good company.” He falls silent after that and Jim wonders if he’s embarrassed at having said so much.

It takes Jim a while to compose an answer, and he plays with a crease in his pants as he speaks. “What’s the program?”

“Rachmaninoff’s Third,” McCoy answers quickly. “Heard there’s a pianist from overseas. Odd name, too… can never remember it. Spock or something funny like that.”

Jim considers this for a moment, then straightens. His spine pops once before a feeling of immense contentment washes through his body, stemming from where McCoy’s hands still rest on the sides of his head. “I’ll go,” he says, and McCoy’s hands disappear.

“You will?”

Jim shrugs nonchalantly, glad that McCoy’s behind him. Funnily enough, it’s easier to face him like this. “I’m a fan of the symphony. It’ll be fun.”

“Fun,” McCoy echoes, and this time, Jim does look at him properly. McCoy’s smiling faintly down at him, his eyes widening slightly when he notices Jim looking.

“I’ll pick you up at six?” McCoy offers, and Jim hesitates.

“This isn’t why you walked me home, is it?” he asks, and McCoy barks out a laugh.

“Paranoid much, kid?” He gives the back of Jim’s head a friendly tap on his way back to his desk. “Walked ya home because you would’ve passed out on your ass otherwise.”

Jim frowns, but McCoy’s smiling when he sits down and faces Jim again. “I wouldn’t have.”

“Better safe than sorry,” McCoy says blithely, fiddling with his cuffs before settling his hands on his keyboard again. “Can’t be losing my assistant on the first date.”

Jim’s train of thought vaults cleanly off its rails before exploding in a ball of fiery glory.

“What?”

McCoy scratches at his nose, eyes fixed firmly on his screen, and Jim swears that his face is a little redder, though it’s hard to tell in the sunlight. “Nothing.”

It was definitely  _something_ , Jim decides, still reeling. “You said—”

“Six, then?” McCoy asks loudly, and Jim pauses. He’s avoiding the subject, Jim realizes, and maybe he’s right to do so. After all, he couldn’t have meant what he said before—it must have been a slip, a moment of unguarded jibing that Jim shouldn’t take seriously.

It’s for his own good, he decides, and tells himself unconvincingly that it’s hardly worth getting worked up over.

“Six it is,” Jim answers lamely.

The next couple of hours are of a different sort of silence.

………………….

Jim can’t help but whistle appreciatively when they arrive at the Davies Symphony Hall. “You know, I’ve never actually been here before.” The building glitters impressively in the night, golden and blue and sparkling, scarlet banners announcing Rachmaninoff’s Third.

“You’ve missed out, then,” McCoy says as he locks the car, and Jim glances at him. He tried to avoid ogling the man on the drive over, but it’s hard to dodge the facts when they’re presented right in front of him in over six feet of crisp and pressed fabric. Jim’s resigned himself to the fact that McCoy simply dresses for all occasions, but now is no exception.

The vest is black, simple, and accentuates McCoy’s ridiculously trim waist in a way that no single item of clothing should ever be allowed to do. The dress shirt beneath is plain, olive, creased perfectly in all the right places and  _damn it all_ , McCoy’s left it unbuttoned at the neck again. If this was anyone else, Jim would’ve said that McCoy did it on purpose, but the man’s got a careless elegance to everything he does that’d probably piss Jim off if it didn’t turn him on so much instead.

“Here, your ticket,” McCoy says as they approach the door, and Jim’s too distracted by the brush of their fingers as he takes the ticket to notice when McCoy reaches out with his other hand. He notices plenty when McCoy settles that hand lightly on the small of his back, guiding him into the crowded marble lobby.

 _Oh God_ , Jim thinks dizzily. He can feel all five of McCoy’s fingertips blazing through his shirt, like the man’s made of fire and lightning, and all he can think is that this isn’t the way a boss would handle an associate on a casual excursion. Maybe it’s to keep them from being separated, suggests his last ounce of reason. The lobby’s packed, after all, and the last thing McCoy would want is for his hapless assistant to be left behind in the rush when the doors open.

McCoy leans close to be heard over the echoing chatter, his face alarmingly close to Jim’s own. He smells like sandalwood, Jim notices wildly, and holds his breath to keep from losing his mind. “I’ve got a private box a floor up,” McCoy says, perfectly oblivious of Jim’s teetering mental state. “Let’s head up.”

Jim doesn’t fully register his words until they’re already on the stairs, climbing up to the second balcony. “You didn’t get those tickets at a raffle,” he says, trying not to sound accusing. “Did you?”

McCoy glances at him wryly. “Guilty as charged,” is all he says.  

The box is small and dimly lit, with only about four seats elevated above the low dividing wall, and Jim shivers at the rush of cooler air as he enters the hall. The place is huge, an arched ceiling rising high above them and rows of red velvet seats stretching beneath them towards the stage, where the orchestra’s already warming up. Jim sits down gingerly on one of the plush seats, tapping his fingers nervously on the wooden armrests as McCoy settles down beside him.

“First time I came here was with my kid,” McCoy says, stretching his legs out comfortably in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. “She fell asleep before the first movement ended.”

Jim chuckles quietly, imagining the sight. McCoy’s daughter couldn’t be older than ten, judging by his age. She’d have his hair, maybe his eyes, and— somehow, trying to imagine McCoy’s ex-wife makes him distinctly uncomfortable.

“What’s her name?” Jim asks, and McCoy exhales softly.

“Joanna,” he answers, and he says it with such wistful awe that Jim feels almost contrite for asking. “After her mom’s grandmother.”

Jim doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know if there’s anything he  _should_ say, and so he just nods and watches as the house lights dim around them.

They have an excellent vantage point from their box, and Jim finds himself leaning forward to get a better view of the dark-haired man as he strides out onto the stage in quick, precise steps, his spine ruler-straight when he bows.

“Looks like an asshole,” McCoy mutters under his breath, and Jim doesn’t think he was meant to hear it. He cranes his neck out further, trying to get a glimpse of Spock’s face before he turns and seats himself at the grand. Beside him, McCoy tsks grumpily.

Spock, as it turns out, is fantastic.

Jim eventually sits back again as the tinkling notes wash over him, watching pale fingers dance effortlessly over ivory keys. Five minutes in, he feels something tickle against the back of his hand and twitches involuntarily. The touch withdraws briefly, then returns more confidently, and Jim is paralyzed as McCoy slides his hand over Jim’s on the armrest.  

“Sir,” Jim murmurs, and McCoy squeezes his fingers lightly.

“Something wrong?”

Jim thinks about it, then sighs under his breath. “No,” he decides, so quietly that he’s not sure that McCoy hears it, but he doesn’t let go of Jim’s hand.

Twenty minutes in, Jim’s starting to get drowsy. Spock’s technique is flawless, or so it seems to his untrained ear, but there’s something methodical about his playing that only emphasizes the gap in potential.

The man could be a god of his world, Jim muses. If he wants it bad enough.

McCoy doesn’t let go of his hand until the third movement, and then his grip finally slacken. Jim glances over subtly, then stiffens in surprise when something heavy leans against his shoulder, hair tickling at his cheek. McCoy’s asleep, Jim realizes with a start, slouched down his chair with his head lolling on Jim’s shoulder, his face turned forward Jim’s body so that it’s buried against his shirt.

Jim stares down at him, at a loss for words. He wants to reach out and touch, to brush McCoy’s hair back from his face, to feel the flutter of his eyelashes as he shifts in his sleep. He can feel McCoy’s breath through his shirt, warm and soft, and something twists painfully in his chest.

“McCoy,” he says quietly, his lips barely stirring, and McCoy’s fingers twitch around his. Jim licks his lips unthinkingly, leaning closer—

The last note rings out, and the audience dissolves in a wave of resounding applause. Jim pulls back hastily just as McCoy grunts and jerks awake at the echo of noise around them, tightening his grip on Jim’s hand reflexively. He raises his head from Jim’s shoulder, the hair on one side of his head standing on end, and blinks twice in dawning realization. “Huh? What’s— aw, shit.” He scowls self-consciously, and even in the dim lighting, Jim can make out his flush.

Jim finds himself grinning as he pulls his hand away, adding in to the applause. Below them, Spock gazes solemnly out at the crowd, bowing meticulously to each side.

“God, I’m sorry,” McCoy groans as they join the flow of patrons down the stairs. “I’m an idiot.”

“It’s all right,” Jim tries to console him. “You’ve had a long day.”

“So have you,” McCoy sulks, patting flusteredly at his hair. “Embarrassing, is what this is. When I’m the one who invited you in the first place.”

Jim looks away to hide his smile, wanting to say something about he didn’t mind at all, but he holds back. If McCoy turns any redder, he’d match the seat covers in the hall.

It’s late, but the lobby is still filled with patrons, milling excitedly after the concert. Jim thinks he catches a glimpse of Uhura’s high ponytail in the distance, but she’s gone the second that he turns to look.

“There’s going to be a reception at Saldana afterwards,” McCoy suddenly says, in a carefully moderated tone. “Spock will be there, if you want to go.”

Jim peers at him curiously, and McCoy glances away, tugging absently at the bottom of his vest. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” McCoy raises an eyebrow. “Thought you were a fan.”

Jim shrugs, and he can still feel the weight of McCoy’s head on his shoulder. “You’re good company,” he says, echoing McCoy’s words from before. “Saldana’s nice and all, but to be honest, I’d be happy with Scotty’s right now.”

McCoy’s smile is brighter than all the hundreds of lights around the symphony hall, and Jim’s never been happier at the prospect of a bad sandwich.

………………….

Scotty’s is still open despite the late hour, and they crack open a few beers together. The two of them are promptly invited over for the game on Friday, and McCoy agrees for the both of them before Jim can say anything.

Strangely enough, it doesn’t piss Jim off. He pokes at his avocado, peanut butter, and salami sandwich, which he imagines has to be better than McCoy’s duck sauce and turkey sandwich, finds himself carried along with the enthusiasm of Scotty and the sensation of McCoy’s knee brushing against his thigh every few seconds, and he’s brimming with good nature by the time McCoy drives him back to his apartment.

“Thanks,” Jim says, when they climb out the car and face the inevitable awkwardness before going their separate ways. He scratches at the back of his head self-consciously, thinking morosely that a simple “thanks” is hardly enough. “For all this. The tickets, I mean, I still can’t believe—”

“I wanted to,” McCoy says firmly. “I should be apologizing, really.”

“Still going on about that?” Jim lowers his hand, swings his arms awkwardly at his sides. “Told you, it was nothing.”

“Still.” McCoy catches his left hand in his own, and Jim falters. McCoy’s thumb swipes absently over the back of his knuckles, looking down at their joined hands as he shuffles a step closer.

“I think…” McCoy begins, then hesitates. He clears his throat and starts again. “I think I should probably clear things up some.”

 _And there it is_.

“Look, Jim,” McCoy says, and he sounds almost nervous. “I like you, kid—a lot more than I probably should.” He takes a deep breath to recollect his thoughts before continuing, and Jim still has no idea what the hell is going on here. “And I know it’s only been a couple of days, but I… I feel like we could be good together.” He peers at Jim carefully, and Jim blinks hard when he realizes he’s expected to respond to the impromptu confession. Dammit, this is one thing they never covered in law school, and how the hell is he supposed to answer when McCoy’s standing in front of him, holding his goddamn hand and looking like  _that_?

“Sir,” he begins, then catches himself and tries again. “Leon—” That doesn’t quite feel right, either, but it’s all he’s got. “I don’t… don’t know what to say.” That much is true, or true enough, at any rate. What he wants to say and what he wants to do are in two completely different hemispheres.

“A ‘yes’ would be preferred,” McCoy says, with a bit of his customary dryness. “But I won’t hold it against you if you don’t—”

“No—” Jim blurts, then winces at McCoy’s crestfallen look. “No, I meant— _yes_ , but, I don’t know—”

“Yes?” McCoy says hopefully. Jim takes one look at him and realizes helplessly that he’s never had a chance to begin with.

“Yes,” he says quietly, and McCoy’s hand tightens reflexively around his.

“You sure?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jim says again, louder, this time, and McCoy’s grin splits the night sky.

“Thank you,” McCoy says, and it’s such an utterly surprising thing to say in the situation that Jim’s lost within seconds. McCoy steps towards him tentatively, and Jim realizes belatedly that something’s shifted between them. What it is exactly, he doesn’t know, but the way McCoy’s looking at him… like he’s seeking  _approval_.

Electricity burns through Jim’s veins, and he finds himself squeezing McCoy’s hand back just as tightly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Jim says, not knowing what else to do, and McCoy’s eyes darken oddly.

“See you tomorrow,” he echoes, before reaching out and closing his hand around the back of Jim’s neck. It happens so quickly that Jim doesn’t realize what’s happening until a split second before it does, McCoy pulling Jim forward and stepping close at the same time. “Jim,” McCoy breathes, his exhale a soft sigh, and then his mouth is pressed firmly against Jim’s.

Jim opens his mouth on reflex, then groans in surprise when McCoy promptly slips his tongue in, tightening his grip and tilting his head to deepen the kiss.

The world comes to a still and implodes, like it’s been holding its breath all along for this very second, and Jim’s blindingly aware of McCoy’s fingers against his skin, around his palm, edging up into his hairline, his body pressed flush against Jim’s from shoulder to waist. Their two heartbeats against his chest, stumbling faster and faster as the seconds tick by at an excruciatingly slow pace. McCoy kisses him slowly, intently, pulling gently at him with lips and tongue like he’s trying to draw something out of Jim. His forehead bumps against Jim’s glasses as he moves, knocking them askew, and Jim thinks distractedly about switching back to contacts before the next time.

The thought of there  _being_ a next time has him breathing unsteadily through his nose, and he sucks impulsively at the tip of McCoy’s tongue before McCoy withdraws again. The other man’s hands tremble, and he lets out a soft moan that jolts through Jim like a lightning bolt. His heart races, his breath quickens, and he chases after the quiet noises in the back of McCoy’s throat.

Part of him is aware that they’re still standing in basically plain sight, barely hidden in the shadows beside McCoy’s Jaguar, but it’s a very small part and very easily ignored. So he slides his hand under that goddamn irresistible vest, feeling the heat of McCoy’s skin through the thin layer of fabric beneath, and McCoy gasps perfectly against his mouth.

Then McCoy’s pushing him back, his hand flat over the center of Jim’s chest, and the moment fractures sharply. They’re both panting, Jim’s vision blurred from dizziness and his heart pounding in his chest. McCoy doesn’t look to be in much better shape, but he clears his throat and straightens himself as best as he can, his lips parted and swollen.

“Tomorrow,” McCoy reminds him, his voice satisfyingly hoarse, and his hands are still shaking when he pushes them in his pockets, hopping back a couple of steps towards the driver’s door and smiling easily at Jim. “Early is on time, remember?”

Jim stares at him, still trying to catch up. “Yeah,” he distantly hears himself say. “Yeah, I remember.” His glasses are still crooked, barely clinging onto the end of his nose, and he straightens them as McCoy gets back in his car.

Yet again, he realizes, he’s been left in the dust of one Leonard McCoy. But this time, for the first time since Jim walked into that office, he feels like he’s not at a disadvantage.

 _I’ve got your number, McCoy,_ he thinks, as he returns to his apartment and an indignant Doc. Things are starting to look up, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Jim wakes up to Doc perched solidly on his face, purring insistently and shedding steadily into his open mouth.

“ _God_ ,” Jim splutters, pushing the cat away and sitting up. “What the hell?” He reaches blindly for the nightstand, his fingers bumping against his glasses frames, and he freezes abruptly.

Oh.

_McCoy’s lips stirring against his, his breaths unsteady and warm, hot fingers curled around his wrist—_

Doc butts against his arm meaningfully, and Jim jerks in surprise. He shakes his head and picks up the glasses, turning them in his hands thoughtfully before sliding them on.  _So, that happened_.

He supposes it shouldn’t be this much of a surprise. McCoy made his intentions pretty clear from day one, and Jim can’t honestly say that he protested the attention.

That, after all, is one fine ass.

But it’s not just that. At least, not anymore. McCoy likes cars, he remembers. Cars and hot dogs and French food and classical music and terrible sandwiches. And now, apparently, Jim’s found himself on that same list.

“Oh God,” Jim says aloud, when the wave of realization finally hits him with a resounding clang, and he accidentally crashes into the wall on his way to the bathroom. Doc blinks at him, unimpressed, and Jim thumps his head against the doorframe with a groan.

He’s dating Leonard McCoy, his  _boss_  and coincidentally the most intriguing person Jim’s ever met, and he’s going to fuck this up, he knows it. Just like everything else in his life.

He’s pretty sure this wasn’t what Pike meant when he told Jim to make a new start for himself.

Doc nips pointedly at his calf and jolts him back into action. It’s not until he’s staring at the coffee maker, watching the dark drops of liquid drip into the pot that he realizes there’s a package on his counter, a piece of mail he must have brought in absently without checking.

It’s his new order of prescription contacts, the reason why he’d dug out his old glasses in the first place, and he spins the box around absently with a finger, just thinking.

In the end, he puts the contacts in his bathroom, slides on McCoy’s glasses, and goes to work with an odd sense of satisfaction.

………………….

He’s not sure what he expects when he walks into McCoy’s office; somehow, it seems like the world must have ended. He saw a concert, ate a traumatizing sandwich, and made out with McCoy on a cracked sidewalk, after all.

But the sunlight’s still streaming cheerfully through the window, McCoy’s tie is green again like the first day, and the half smile he offers Jim is no different than any from the previous two days.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, sir.” Jim suppresses the urge to reach up and fiddle with his glasses as he opens his briefcase, shifting the day’s files onto his desk.  

“Get a good night’s sleep?” McCoy asks nonchalantly, and while it isn’t so far beyond the scope of appropriate interaction, it’s still pointed enough for Jim to flush and drop his stapler on his foot.

He bites back a curse and bends down to pick it up, taking the opportunity to compose himself before he emerges again from behind the desk. “Yes, sir,” he says, looking directly at McCoy. “And you?”

He thinks he sees McCoy’s mouth twitch in something suspiciously close to satisfaction before the other man answers. “Can’t really claim the same.”

 _Oh God_.

Jim resolutely puts all thought of what else McCoy might have been doing in his bed out of his mind. “That’s too bad, sir,” he says, sitting down, and after a few moments, he hears McCoy start typing again.

At their lunch break, Jim looks up expectantly only to find McCoy watching him. “Sir?”

“I was just thinking,” McCoy says slowly, folding his hands on his desk. He’s playing absently with his pinky ring, Jim notices, the silver flashing as he turns it around and around his finger. “You haven’t really told me much about yourself.”

Jim blinks, caught off guard, and leans back in his seat. “I figured Pike said something.”

To his surprise, McCoy grimaces, his mouth twisting wryly. “Let’s just say that I wasn’t as receptive as I could have been.”

Yes, Jim does remember that, the careful way that Pike phrased the fact that his future employer might not be welcoming to the thought of a new assistant. “What changed your mind?”

McCoy meets his eyes, and suddenly all Jim can remember is the way he looked when he took Jim’s hand and—

_“I like you, kid—a lot more than I probably should.”_

“You’re interesting,” McCoy says simply, and Jim feels himself turning red.

 _Dammit, Kirk, get a fucking grip_. He clenches his hands into fists beneath the desk, digging his nails in his palm to focus. “Not much to tell,” he says. “Wasn’t much of a life before law school.”

“Funny, people usually say the opposite,” McCoy tells him dryly.

“Yeah, well. They’re the lucky ones.” Jim can still remember long, dark nights spent on the street, in the gym, a stranger’s bed, wherever he could sleep that wasn’t the tiny flat three blocks away from Chinatown. “It wasn’t easy at home. I have a brother, Sam. He got out as fast as he could, and I can’t really blame him.”

“And you?” McCoy asks quietly. Jim glances up at him apprehensively; this is usually the part of the story where people hum uncomfortably and change the subject, or offer a sympathetic ear that he neither wants nor needs, but the way McCoy’s watching him doesn’t hint at anything similar. The way he looks at Jim is like a man seeing the greatest puzzle of his life.

“Me?” Jim raises his hand, rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I dunno, just sort of fell in and out of some shit. It happens.”

“Don’t deflect,” McCoy says. “Finish the story.”

Jim huffs in amusement. “I told you before—it’s not much of one.”

“Even so,” McCoy says, leaning forward, and Jim catches himself unconsciously mirroring the movement before forcing himself to sit back. “I’d like to know.”

Jim stares at him for a long moment, then finds himself shrugging and saying, “I’ll tell you some other time.”

McCoy raises an eyebrow, and Jim didn’t realize how much he liked seeing him do that until just now. There’s a lot about McCoy, he decides, that he liked without realizing. The way he plays with his ring, the way the faint lines around the corners of his eyes relax when he looks at the ocean, or listens to music, or talks about his daughter. The way he treats Jim like he’s someone who needs to be impressed instead of the other way around.  

It’s ridiculously sweet in a weird sort of way, and it’s driving Jim absolutely crazy.

They skip going out to lunch that day in lieu of prepping for the McCulloch trial the day after next, but McCoy calls Christine to order a pizza and when it arrives, he makes a show to dragging a chair over to Jim’s desk to eat it.

“Best pie I’ve had yet,” he assures Jim, rolling up his sleeves with an almost terrifying enthusiasm. “But don’t take my word for it.”

McCoy’s right, and Jim’s starting to wonder if the man has a sixth sense about these things. One thing’s for certain, at least—he’ll be eating well as long as they’re dating.

He mentally stumbles over the word, then retracts and studies it uncertainly. This damn well doesn’t feel like any variation of “dating” he’s ever done, but then again, those usually ended with him waking up in someone else’s bed within twelve hours of meeting them. Dinner is a sometimes, breakfast is always a no, and brunch is a dubious maybe.

And now here he is, looking on as McCoy folds a slice of pizza in half and catches the melting cheese on his tongue, and he thinks he can sit here and watch the man eat forever.

“You aren’t hungry?” McCoy asks, glancing at him, and Jim fumbles his half-eaten slice.

“Huh?”

McCoy nods at his pizza, lips curled in that damn half-smirk that does nothing to settle Jim’s nerves. “Something wrong with that?”

“I—no,” Jim splutters, feeling more and more flustered, and he abruptly crams the pizza in his mouth. McCoy laughs softly, but it’s not out of spite, and Jim feels warm in more ways than one when McCoy scoots over subtly to press their shoulders together.

That night, McCoy insists on driving him home, and the first time that Jim tries to call McCoy by his first name is an utter disaster. He ends up a spluttering, incoherent mess, lingering awkwardly on the front steps of his apartment building and wishing that he had a hole to bury himself in.

“Len,” McCoy tells him wryly, looking more amused than offended. “Never really liked ‘Leonard,’ anyway.”

It’s not until Jim asks Christine the next morning that he finds out it’s what McCoy’s ex-wife used to call him.

“I’ve met her once,” she confides, glancing at the door to McCoy’s office to make sure it’s fully closed. “Not a bad person, if you don’t consider the context.”

“Context?”

She looks embarrassed to have said so much, but goes on anyway in a lowered tone. “Custody rights, you know. Of their daughter. Mr. McCoy’s good, the best, but he’s no divorce lawyer.”

Jim listens and nods at the appropriate times, but he doesn’t understand what she means until the day of the McCulloch trial.

The day of the trial is sunny, a faint scattering of wispy clouds in the pale blue sky, and Jim, who’s not altogether sure how to feel about seeing McCoy in action for the first time, shows up bright and early at the courthouse with dubious expectations only to find McCoy looking altogether too relaxed for a man about to bring down the might of the law on a laundering social worker.

“Do you need…anything?” Jim asks hesitantly. “Coffee? You need coffee?”

McCoy rewards him with an amused look and tells him to go take a walk. By the time Jim returns from a bewildered lap down the hallway and back, McCoy has his scant sheaf of notes neatly set on one side of his desk, a glass of water on the other, his tie redone to pristine perfection, and a distant expression that Jim hasn’t seen on the man before.

He’s terrifying during the trial, in a pressed and flawless sort of way, and Jim sits down beside him quietly, too unfamiliar with McCoy’s process to attempt to help.

It turns out that McCoy doesn’t need any help, and Jim watches in awe as he proceeds to tear the opposition to shreds, questioning the witnesses with a pinpoint clarity that has the jury nodding along at certain points before they catch themselves and the laundering social worker pissing his pants.

Jim’s having a distinctly different issue with his own pants, and he shifts his weight uncomfortably as the trial goes on. God, McCoy’s voice, so different in court, but still so clearly his own, and it  _does_  things to Jim. The way he moves, brimming with equal amounts of confidence and disdain—something that should be annoying, but only manages to be fucking hot—his ring flashing with every measured gesture and his eyes burning every time they happen to flick in Jim’s direction.

God, he can swear that McCoy does it on purpose, except that he’s almost positive that the man has no idea.

They celebrate the win that night at Scotty’s; it’s Jim’s first time witnessing a game night there, and he gawks at the sheer number of people crammed inside the tiny cafe, shouting vigorously at the tiny television set above the counter. “Is it like this every week?” He has to yell to make himself heard, leaning in close behind McCoy as the other man forges a path through the crowd.

McCoy gives the mob a cursory glance and shrugs. “I’ve seen it fuller. C’mere.” He grabs Jim’s hand, presumably to keep them from being separated, and drags him deeper towards the back of the cafe. McCoy’s hand is large and warm, long fingers enveloping Jim’s, and he’s buzzing with something stronger than the atmosphere by the time they find an empty booth in the corner.

“Scotty,” McCoy calls, and a disheveled head pops up from behind the bar, scowling reflexively. McCoy points down at the booth, shouting, “D’you mind?” He waves for Jim to sit down anyway, then slides in beside him instead of sitting across the table. The booth is narrow enough that their bodies press together from shoulder to hip, and after a second, McCoy slings an arm along the back of the seat as casually as if they’ve been doing this for years.

Keenser eventually makes his way to their table, holding a tray above his head determinedly to avoid being jostled.

“Thanks, Keenser,” McCoy says, plucking the two beers off the tray before the little man can overbalance. “Busy night again, huh?”

Keenser looks at them, shrugs, and disappears as the door opens with difficulty and admits another group of three. It’s a while before Scotty joins them, but McCoy passes the time by leaning in close and telling Jim about the time the cafe was packed so full that it was standing room only, and he’d come out of it missing a shoe and his shirt.

“It was crazy, man, I’m telling you,” McCoy insists, chuckling along as Jim laughs. He has to bend forward to make himself heard over the din, his stubble scraping occasionally against Jim’s cheek whenever Jim turns his face too far to the left. “This is nothing compared to that.”

Jim snickers one last time, tilting unconsciously towards McCoy as he straightens. Their knees bump beneath the table, and Jim starts to move away automatically, but McCoy’s hand settles on his leg, keeping him still.

 _Oh God_ , Jim thinks faintly, when his startled glance catches McCoy’s intent gaze. They haven’t kissed since that first night, and part of him was starting to wonder if it happened at all. But now McCoy’s leaning forward, his other hand coming up to slide through the hair on the back of Jim’s head, and suddenly all the noise in the room has died down to a distant roar that can just as easily be the sound of his own heartbeat.

“Sorry, boys, it’s a goddamn  _madhouse_  in here,” Scotty interrupts, dropping down in the seat across from them. Jim has a small heart attack, jerking sharply away from McCoy.

“Scotty,” McCoy sighs, rubbing his hand down his face and peering tragically at the oblivious man. “ _Really_?”

“This is a PG-rated establishment,” Scotty points out, jabbing a finger at a crooked sign hanging over Jim’s head that, upon further inspection, does say in faded Sharpie letters: ‘No snogging or making of the out or any otherwise dubious behavior.’

“‘Making of the out’?” McCoy demands in outrage. “What’s that even supposed t’mean?”

“Means no partaking of the flesh, Lennie. Makes me bitter.”

“It ain’t nobody’s fault you’re single but your own—”

“Jimmy!” Scotty exclaims, turning towards Jim with a beaming smile. “How’s game night treatin’ ya?”

“Loudly?” Jim answers uncertainly, and Scotty pffts dismissively, reaching for McCoy’s beer and downing half of it.

“I’ve got to be off again now. Buggers are drinking me dry,” he explains, jerking his head at the boisterous crowd. “Give Keenser a heads-up if you’ll be wanting a top-off, eh?”

“Will do, Scotty,” McCoy says, staring mournfully at what’s left of his drink. “Have a good night.”

“Damn right I will,” Scotty says fervently, and then he’s off again.

Things start to get a bit crazy once the karaoke machine comes out, and after a particularly painful rendition of “Baby Got Back” by one of the more drunken patrons, McCoy settles a hand on Jim’s elbow. “You wanna get outta here?” he says loudly. “Trust me, you  _don’t_  want to hear Scotty when he gets ahold of the mic.”

Jim chuckles at that, warm and full and more than a little loopy from gazing into McCoy’s eyes, and so he lets McCoy pull him to his feet, the other man’s fingers lacing firmly through his as he leads them through the crowd.

In the end, they don’t really go anywhere but the bar across the street, a quiet, dim place with the air of an old jazz lounge to it. They sit at the bar, make casual conversation with the bartender, and McCoy keeps pushing glasses of something bubbly and golden towards Jim until he loses count.

When they finally make their way out, it’s edging on past ten and Jim’s never been at more peace with the world. He tells McCoy this seriously as McCoy bundles them into a cab. His apartment is only a few short minutes’ drive away at a taxi’s speed, and McCoy gets out first, reaching in breezily to take Jim’s hand like some sort of old-fashioned suitor.

“C’mon, princess,” McCoy says, and Jim snorts unattractively before letting McCoy pull him out.

“I’m no princess.”

“You’re drunk, darlin’,” McCoy murmurs back, his lips curling into an affectionate smile, and Jim blinks at him indignantly.

“Am not,” he says, and he frowns, because he isn’t. He’s just so happy he could fucking die.

“Drunk on something,” McCoy corrects, and Jim accepts that, because it’s true enough. Then McCoy leans in, pulling Jim closer by their still intertwined fingers. “So am I,” McCoy confesses, and then he kisses Jim on the cheek.

Jim makes a vague sound of protest and turns towards him, and McCoy promptly kisses his other cheek. “Dammit,” Jim says, caught halfway between annoyance and giddy laughter, and he lunges forward again only to be intercepted by McCoy’s mouth on his nose. It’s such a ridiculous thing that it stops him dead in his tracks, and McCoy takes the opportunity to kiss his forehead before dropping back down from his toes, grinning.

“Come here and kiss me,” Jim finally says exasperatedly, and something flashes approvingly in McCoy’s eyes before he steps forward and slants his mouth against Jim’s. It’s not quite a raging forest fire of a kiss, but it’s enough to send sparks swirling lazily to Jim’s toes before rising back up to buoy him like a hot air balloon. McCoy’s lips are soft against his, gentle and oddly tentative, and there’s only the faintest rasp of stubble when he leans in closer and deepens the kiss.

“Oh,” Jim says, rather stupidly to his own ears, when McCoy’s hand settles on the small of his back, but you’d think it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever said judging by the faint moan McCoy hums against his mouth, the way McCoy’s tongue abruptly nudges at Jim’s lips for entry.

His glasses are skewed sideways by the sudden force of the kiss, and he jerks reflexively when they slip off his face. He catches them by pure chance, McCoy’s hand covering his own as the other man does the exact same thing, and they stand frozen for a second, adrenaline coursing through Jim’s veins like a slap to the face. The moment is regrettably, wholly broken, and he just wants to laugh and laugh until McCoy kisses him again.

“I better,” McCoy begins, releasing Jim’s hand. “Better let you go for the night, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jim says dazedly, busying himself with putting his glasses back on. “Goodnight, Len.”

He barely manages to make it all the way to his apartment before he claps a hand over his mouth, groans out loud, and feels himself exploding in a wave of disbelief and embarrassment and oh God, this is like eighth grade all over again. How it’s even possible for someone like McCoy to exist in real life, he has no fucking clue, because the man could’ve stepped right out of a GQ version of a goddamn fairytale.  

In fact, it’s going so well between them, so unbelievably smooth, that it’s about a week before Jim really notices.

McCoy always kisses him at the end of every night, each one lasting a little longer than the last and edging that much closer to the line of public indecency, but it never goes further than that. It’s almost like McCoy’s waiting for something, pulling away just far enough for Jim to have to chase after him, and Jim loses his nerve every damn time.

“Something’s wrong with me,” he tells Doc, holding the cat up to his face and staring desperately into unamused amber eyes. “I’m losing it, Doc. Daddy’s losing his touch.” He doesn’t remember it ever being this hard before, but then again, he doesn’t remember it ever being so good.

He’s happy just to hold McCoy’s hand in the movie theater, to watch him eat a sandwich, to glimpse the tantalizing flash of skin and hair that shows every time he loosens his collar, to go to work every day and see that familiar smirk and feel hazel eyes on him all morning until their lunch break.

To be frank, it’s fairly terrifying, and there’s more than a few times that he contemplates throwing the towel in altogether, to cut it off before it gets any further, before he falls any deeper, before he can become completely and fully addicted to Leonard McCoy in every way possible.

But it’s never more than a fleeting thought, and every doubt is swept away by the low rumble of McCoy’s laugh, the taste of his name in McCoy’s mouth in the shadows beside his Jaguar, the feel of McCoy’s hands as they grasp and release, never hanging on as tightly as Jim wants.

The closest the standoff come to a breaking point happens on a Monday afternoon, at approximately three in the afternoon while Jim’s checking over his final drafts.

“Jim,” McCoy says suddenly, and Jim glances up distractedly, his thoughts still immersed in his work.

“Sir?”

McCoy’s staring at him intently, his thumb flicking absently at his ring again as he contemplates Jim. “I need your help with something.”

Jim raises his eyebrows, sets his pen down and looks at him curiously. “Yeah? How so?”

“Imagine,” McCoy says, his mouth twitching slightly now, “that you’re a gorgeous blonde secretary. Blue eyes. D cups.”

The last catches Jim off guard, and he squints at McCoy suspiciously, wondering if he’s the recipient of some poorly-timed joke. “Should I fetch Miss Chapel for this, sir?”

“No, you’ll do,” McCoy says offhandedly. “Anyway, Jim. Gorgeous specimen that you are, you wander into your boss’s office one day only to find yourself pinned against the wall by the man. What’s the reasonable course of action here?”

Jim blinks. “I, well. I’m assuming he didn’t pin her there for her health.”

“Sexual motivations, naturally,” McCoy amends nonchalantly. The word, “sexual,” Jim reflects painfully, shouldn’t sound that natural coming him. “Now focus. Do you scream? Do you resort to physical violence?”

Jim tries to concentrate, his brow furrowing as he summons up a wobbly image of this hypothetical office. “How’s he got her pinned, exactly? Could be hard to fight back, depending on their position.”

McCoy raises his hands, waves them ineffectually towards the wall in what Jim assumes is supposed to be a helpful manner. “You know. She’s got her back up like this, he’s in front, with one hand here and—”

“Sir,” Jim interrupts, more exasperated than enlightened at this point, “why don’t you just show me?” He stands and McCoy’s eyes snap to his movement. “She was pinned here like this, you said?” Jim backs up to the wall behind his desk until his shoulders meet the plaster. “And where’s he?”

McCoy studies him for a moment longer, his expression unreadable, and then he’s standing and crossing the room, tugging at the knot of his tie to loosen it. Jim presses back against the wall instinctively, flattening himself as McCoy stops directly in front of him, their toes practically touching. “He’s here,” McCoy says, his voice rumbling in the scant inches of air between them. “Like this.”

Jim’s proud for not flinching when McCoy’s fingers wrap around his left wrist, bringing his hand up to rest gently against the wall beside his head. McCoy holds it there, firm enough to keep Jim’s arm from falling, but careful enough so that Jim can break away if he wants. McCoy catches Jim’s gaze, tips his head in an unspoken question, and Jim swallows with an audible click.

“Where’s his other hand?” he hears himself ask, and McCoy’s expression wavers for a split, remarkably satisfying second.

Jim does jump this time when light fingertips trace along the seam of his slacks, coming to rest against his thigh. “Here,” McCoy breathes, leaning in even closer, and now Jim can feel his breath stirring against his ear, feeling the heat of McCoy’s body with every inch of his own despite the fact that they’re barely touching. “So? What would you do?”

Jim struggles to remember the original question, his heart racing so loudly so that he’s certain McCoy can hear it. “I’d—I’d fight back, I suppose. He leaves room here for her to raise her leg, she could’ve landed a pretty strong blow.” He shifts his own hips to demonstrate, only to realize his error when his thigh ends up pressing between McCoy’s legs, bringing them flush together, and  _oh_.

McCoy’s even breathing breaks its rhythm, and his grip tightens ever so slightly around Jim’s wrist. “Just like that, huh?”

“Well, no—yes, but—” Jim feels himself floundering, completely undone by the hot hardness against his leg, and when McCoy finally presses their mouths together, he’s so relieved that he could collapse.

There’s an odd moment of disorientation, where McCoy pulls and tugs at him when Jim expects him to push, but finally, McCoy growls and flips them around so that his own back is against the wall, dragging Jim forward against him determinedly.

This kiss is reminiscent of their first, bordering on desperation and careening along the edge of something wonderful, something destructive, something that makes Jim want to break into pieces and let McCoy put him back together. Breathing turns into panting, McCoy’s hands are  _everywhere_ , running heavily over Jim’s back, dropping down to palm at his ass, tug at his belt. Jim kisses McCoy’s mouth, his cheek, drags his lips across McCoy’s stubbled jaw and relishes in the dry burn.

“Fuck,” McCoy says hoarsely, tilting his head to the side and exposing more skin along his neck for Jim to get at. “Oh God.”

“Len,” Jim murmurs, pressing harder against McCoy and feeling him suddenly tense. He fumbles a hand down between them, groaning when he feels the outline of McCoy’s cock against his slacks, hard and hot. “Len, I—”

Then McCoy’s pushing him away with a shove to the chest, his exhales harsh and ragged as he struggles to catch his breath, and Jim stumbles back, trying to regain his balance. “We can’t,” McCoy says finally, raising a hand and wiping it shakily across his mouth. “Not now.”

Jim makes an incredulous noise. “ _Len_ —”

“Not now,” McCoy repeats firmly, and he gives Jim a brief once-over. “Bathroom’s down the hall on the right, if you need to take care of that.”

Jim blinks, stung at the abrupt dismissal, and nods stiffly. “Yes, sir.”

McCoy’s expression shifts slightly, possibly realizing how he sounded, and he leans forward. “Jim, don’t—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Jim says, tacking on the last word with a little more emphasis than necessary. “I’ve got something that needs taking care of.”

He leaves the office before he can do something ridiculously humiliating, like apologize for nothing he’s done wrong or come right there in his pants, because despite all that, he’s still painfully hard. Thankfully, Christine’s out on her own lunch break, and he manages to avoid awkward questions as he locks himself into the bathroom.

 _Fuck you very much,_   _sir_ , he thinks vindictively, wondering if McCoy’s jerking himself off in his office, sitting in his fucking leather chair as he fists his cock and—

Jim moans at the thought, hating himself even as he fumbles at his belt, tugging the strap free from the buckle and yanking at his zipper. He wonders if McCoy’s thinking about him, thinking about his cock in Jim’s hand, his mouth, his ass. The back of his head hits the stall as he wraps his fingers around his aching cock, drawing it out into the cool air and giving himself a rough stroke.

The sharp irritation in his chest has started fading to a dull throb of bewildered hurt, like an old bruise. The hell did McCoy  _do_ that for, he despairs. Asshole. It’s not like Jim started this, it’s not  _his_ fault he’s crammed in a tiny bathroom trying to be quiet as he jerks himself off over his fucking boss.

He bites down on a groan as he picks up speed, just wanting to get off before he makes an even bigger fool of himself. Maybe he got ahead of himself back there, sped things along when McCoy didn’t want to, but no, there’s no way McCoy didn’t want him just as much. But still, that flicker of doubt is present even as he squeezes hard and digs his thumb into his slit, and then he’s coming all over his hand, clutching his shirt to his belly to keep from dirtying it as his cock jumps and pulses in his fist.

“Len,” Jim whispers, his voice cracking, and he settles heavily against the wall, legs weak and his head spinning.

Eventually, he pulls himself together enough to straighten up, cleaning himself up at the sink and inspecting his reflection before returning to the office, his steps heavy. Christine’s back by now, and he gives her a distracted nod before setting his hand uncertainly on the door knob.

“You okay?” she asks, eyeing him curiously, and Jim starts.

“Yeah,” he says, trying to convince himself it’s halfway true. “Yeah, I am.”

McCoy looks up at him when he enters. He’s back behind his desk, not a hair out of place and his shirt unwrinkled like Jim’s hands have never tugged at it, trying to get at the warm skin beneath. “You’re back,” McCoy says calmly, and Jim suddenly has the urge to knock that composure off his face. “You all right?”

Jim murmurs an affirmative, ducking his face away from McCoy’s scrutiny and sitting down at his own desk. After a short, increasingly awkward pause, McCoy clears his throat and goes back to work. Jim glances up at him incredulously, and catches a glimpse of a red mark peeking over the top of McCoy’s collar that he barely remembers making.

The rest of the day is unbearably awkward, and Jim gets the hell out of there before McCoy can offer him a ride, or even worse, not offer.

Denial’s a sneaky son of a bitch, he thinks gloomily, as he counts out change for a cab. Keeps you running away until it loops around and bites you on the ass, never mind who else he’d rather bite his ass.

It seems, though, that McCoy does realize he’s somehow fucked things up between them. Jim’s phone rings not just once overnight, but a total of three times, which is a record-breaker for McCoy, who usually hates using his phone. Jim’s already had to receive several personal calls for him regarding dental appointments, telemarketers, and on one memorable occasion, a first cousin twice removed. It’s gotten to the point where McCoy’s started leaving his cell phone on Jim’s desk, with the instruction to only toss it to him if it’s a text message or Google store update.

But Jim doesn’t answer his phone now, watching the screen blink with McCoy’s name before darkening again, and he tries to squash down the rising guilt in his gut. It’s  _not_ his fault, he maintains. It’s not even the fact that McCoy called it off that’s getting under his skin; he’s not an idiot, he knows the ramifications of getting carried away in the workplace. But it’s the way that McCoy did it, the dismissal with which he treated Jim’s protests. The way he spoke and expected to obey and the fact that Jim  _did_  do as he was told.

It just bothers him, is all, and surely he has the right to be annoyed sometimes.

Jim shows up to work the next day to find an envelope on his desk and a suspiciously absent McCoy. “Hey, Christine,” he calls through the door. “He in yet?”

“Stepped out for a coffee,” comes the reply, and Jim prods at the envelope. He has a sneaking suspicion who put it there, and that it’ll probably be a disappointing attempt at some sort of unwanted apology.

It’s a season pass to the rest of the San Francisco Symphony’s concerts, and Jim stares grimly at the glossy ticket. When McCoy pokes his head in a few minutes later and surreptitiously glances Jim’s way, the pass is in the envelope again, lying face down on a corner of Jim’s desk. “Good morning,” McCoy says, a little less assertively than he might normally, and Jim gives a brief nod.

“Sir,” is all he says, and he resolutely doesn’t look over as he continues working. He can see McCoy lingering in the doorway out of the corner of his eye, passing a steaming coffee cup between his hands uncertainly. Finally, he steps into the office, setting the cup down beside the envelope without a word before continuing on to his own desk. Jim stares at the coffee, then at McCoy’s retreating back. As far as peace offerings go, it’s not what he expected from a guy like McCoy.

The coffee’s terrible, but McCoy’s never quite gotten the hang of the coffee maker, and Jim’s reluctantly charmed by the idea of McCoy fiddling with the thing himself. _Quit that, you’re supposed to be mad_ , he reminds himself. He drinks the coffee anyway and pretends not to notice McCoy peeking at him from across the office whenever he reaches for the cup.

The flowers surprise the hell out of him when he gets home and finds the bouquet sitting by his front door. No note, but he  _knows_.

“Just apologize, you stubborn bastard,” he mutters, picking up the flowers and inspecting them gloomily. If McCoy put as much effort into verbal communication as he did spending money trying to bribe Jim’s forgiveness, the matter would have been resolved a day ago.

He puts the flowers on the kitchen counter, hopefully out of Doc’s reach, and wonders how long this can go on.

Apparently, it can go on for as long as McCoy can come up with different ways to apologize without ever saying the words. More coffee the next morning, an increase in kicked puppy stares from across the office, straightening up expectantly whenever Jim looks his way. It’s almost too much to bear for Jim, who’s used to much more straightforward interaction. he doesn’t  _know_  how to play these games, hasn’t been in a relationship long enough to go through something like this.

Christine’s waiting for him the next day with a folded note and an inscrutable expression on her face. “He’s taking the day off,” she tells him, giving him the piece of paper. “You really didn’t have to show up.”

Jim sighs, then scowls helplessly when he sees the address scrawled elegantly on the cream stationery. “What’s this?”

Christine shrugs vaguely, in the manner of one who knows too much and chooses to say too little, and Jim puts the note in his pocket.

He looks at it again when he’s back home, lying on his couch with Doc on his stomach and the TV turned on to provide aimless white noise. Seven pm, it says, just beneath the address. That’s it, no message, no signature. Part of him wants to toss the sad excuse of a note and forget this ever happened, and fuck McCoy for thinking he can keep jerking Jim around like this, but still….

“Goddammit,” he says, huffing loud enough to wake the cat and earn a disgusted glare.

………………….

It’s his first time at McCoy’s apartment, and there’s a moment of panic when the cab drops him off in front of a set of large, gleaming gates. The man in the gatehouse peers out at him dubiously, pressing the intercom button. “Here to see someone?”

“Yeah.” Jim’s voice cracks slightly, and he tells himself sternly to man up. “Leonard McCoy. 5D.”

The man consults his screen, then nods and offers Jim a bland smile. “Go right on up.” The gate creaks open, and Jim steps in, trying not to look as out of his depth as he feels. Just the lobby itself makes him want to turn tail and leave, preferably from a back exit, and he’s suddenly extremely relieved that he’s never thought to invite McCoy up to his own place.

The elevator’s half the size of his bedroom, he can’t help but think, and he fidgets with his tie pointlessly, wondering why the hell he bothered to dress up for this in the first place. It’s McCoy’s favorite tie, or at least, Jim thinks it is. He gets more appreciative glances when he wears it, anyway, more lingering touches when McCoy passes, and he wildly hopes that it wasn’t all in his head. At least he left the glasses back home this time; he didn’t want to seem overly desperate.

When he finds 5D, he bites the bullet and knocks before he can completely lose his nerve. It’s ten minutes to seven, not outrageously early, but even so, he’s stunned when the door opens almost instantly.

“Jim,” McCoy says, staring at him with what can only be described as utter relief. “You’re here.”

“You left a note,” Jim says. It’s the first and only thing he can think of to say, and he shuffles his weight awkwardly. “So…”

“Oh,” McCoy says, blinking. “I, ah. Here, come in.” He steps quickly to the side, and Jim’s burningly aware of how stilted the atmosphere is between them, how quickly that unsettlingly easy comfort between them has stiffened into something decidedly not, and he suddenly wishes he never came. But he’s here now, and McCoy’s wearing his shirt open again; God, he  _knows_ what that does to Jim. So he steps in, casting a furtive glance around, and yup, it’s pretty much as he expected. All dark wood and restrained elegance and, fuck, McCoy’s television is the size of Jim’s bathtub.

But his eyes are instantly drawn to the small table set in the middle of a cleared idea. It’s covered in a heavy white cloth, set with two plates that probably cost half of Jim’s paycheck altogether, a candle burning between them and… oh God, there are rose petals.

“What’s this?” Jim asks, his voice strangled, and he’s afraid he’s going to start laughing on the spot if he doesn’t get an explanation.

“Dinner?” McCoy says hesitantly. It’s so far removed from his usual confidence that he usually displays that Jim has to crack a smile, and the ice defrosts by that much.

“You didn’t have to,” he says, walking closer and admiring the scene. It’s lifted right out of a bad romance novel, and he has no idea why it’s getting to him so damn much, imagining McCoy painstakingly laying the table out and scattering the goddamn roses.

“It was Christine’s idea,” McCoy mumbles, coming up behind him. “Is it…is it okay?”

He can stay for dinner, Jim decides. After all, if he walks out now, the place is practically set for their own terrible rom-com.

It’s not so awkward an event as he dreads, and McCoy tactfully keeps the conversation to work matters, steering clear of any topic that might approach the looming concept of a “them”. The food itself is spectacular, and he really should’ve expected McCoy to be able to cook. As if the man needed any other reason to be disgustingly perfect.

Maybe some of Scotty’s bitterness is rubbing off on him, Jim thinks gloomily as he inspects a perfectly sauteed potato on the end of his fork.

“Is this another apology?” Jim asks later, when they’re standing side by side in McCoy’s gleaming, stained-steel kitchen and doing the dishes. There’s a terribly domestic feel to it all, McCoy’s shoulder bumping against his whenever he hands Jim a dish to dry, his sleeves rolled up haphazardly past his elbows, and Jim’s never been more glad for elitist china plates too expensive for the likes of a dishwasher.

McCoy’s sponge slips on the pan, and he spends a few long moments fishing around for it in the foggy water before answering. “If you want.”

“Len,” Jim says, impatience creeping into his voice. “Come on.”

“I’m not good at it,” McCoy mumbles, squishing the newly recovered sponge nervously in his hands, and Jim surprises himself by snorting disbelievingly.

“Damn right you aren’t.” Jim sets down the plate he’s been drying for the past two minutes, tossing his towel down on the counter and turning to face McCoy. “Say it.”

McCoy blinks at him, his eyes flicking between Jim’s hands and his face. “What?”

“Say you’re sorry,” Jim says. “And we’ll be fine.”

McCoy stares, his mouth opening uncertainly before snapping shut again. He gives a little shake of his head, and Jim rolls his eyes so hard that it hurts.

“Two words, Len, is that so hard?” He puts his hands on his hips, feeling ridiculously like his mother whenever he did something particularly bullheaded as a kid. “Jesus, I don’t want to keep this up any longer.”

“You didn’t like the…?” McCoy gestures helplessly at the cleared table, scattering water droplets in the air, and Jim sighs.

“I liked it,” he says honestly. “I liked it, and I like you, and fuck, would you just _apologize_ already?” He feels dangerously close to stomping his foot and quickly suppresses the urge. The last thing he needs is to make himself look like an even bigger idiot. “That stunt in the office… if you didn’t want it to go the way that it did, you should’ve told me in the first place! Then I wouldn’t have—”

“Of course I wanted to,” McCoy snaps exasperatedly. “I wanted to rip the damn clothes off of ya right there, kid!”

“Then why didn’t you?” Jim demands, emboldened by his brief success. “I wouldn’t have  _complained_ —”

McCoy throws his hands up in distress and sends foam flying. “We were in the office, Jim! The hell was I supposed to do, bend you over a desk in plain sight of whoever the hell decided to walk in?”

Jim’s cock, traitorous bastard it is, jumps at McCoy’s words, and he swallows tightly. “I wouldn’t have complained,” he says again, slower this time, and McCoy looks at him in shock.

“Really?” It’s the most unsure Jim’s ever heard McCoy, and he has no idea why it turns him on so much; hell, everything McCoy does turns him on and he’s stopped counting.

Jim reaches out in answer, grabs a handful of McCoy’s annoyingly crisp shirt and wrecks it with a sharp tug.

McCoy crashes into him like an asteroid, a moon, his mouth hot and demanding, his stubble scraping dryly against Jim’s chin. “Fuck, fuck,” he realizes McCoy’s muttering after a few seconds. “You  _do_ things to me, kid, dunno why I keep—”

“Shut up,” Jim tells him firmly, drunk and reeling on the moment, and to his surprise, McCoy falls silent instantly.

Instead, the kiss grows harder, more frenzied, and Jim moans when McCoy grabs his belt, dragging him even closer by the strap. He can feel McCoy’s wet hands through his shirt, soaking the fabric and chilling his skin. McCoy’s mouth wanders down the side of his neck, his teeth scraping until it meets Jim’s collar. Jim grunts impatiently and pulls him back into a proper kiss, wanting to draw this out, to remember and relearn the way McCoy’s lips and tongue move against his own. He’s getting hard at an alarming rate, the friction of his slacks almost too overwhelming when McCoy shoves and jostles at him, wrapping an arm around his waist to bring him closer.

He’s getting left behind again, Jim realizes abruptly, and he tries to make a proper stand out of it, tightening his grip on McCoy’s shirt and hauling him in simultaneously. McCoy’s neck is still as sensitive as he remembers from their one botched encounter, he discovers, and he latches on to McCoy’s throat without warning, feeling the vibrations of McCoy’s startled grunt beneath his lips.

“Fuck,” McCoy mutters, the word rumbling against Jim’s mouth, and Jim shivers when he feels the back of his shirt being tugged out from his slacks, the flutter of cool air up his damp back briefly disorienting him.

 _This is it_ , Jim thinks dizzily, panting against the side of McCoy’s neck as the other man takes advantage of his distraction to reach around and palm his ass roughly. _Oh God, this is really happening—_

McCoy presses his face against Jim’s cheek, exhales against him harshly as he squeezes Jim’s ass one last time and whispers in his ear—

“Fuck me,” McCoy tells him, and the world grinds to a screeching halt.

“What?” Jim pulls back, startled, and McCoy stares at him hard, his tongue flicking out to wet his parted lips.

“I want,” McCoy starts, then stops and corrects himself. “I  _need_ it, Jim. Fuck me.”

Jim blinks. Blinks again. Lets his eyes flicker down to the unmistakable bulge in McCoy’s slacks. Somehow, in all of his frustrated fantasies of this very moment, he never imagined McCoy asking to bottom. Well, demanding, really, but that part is no surprise; McCoy’s not the type to ask for something he knows he can have.

But McCoy asked for  _him_ , he remembers abruptly. When he knew full and well that Jim would be his at a snap of his fingers, McCoy  _asked_.

“Okay,” Jim answers, his voice hoarse, and McCoy grins triumphantly before dragging him back in again, this time by his tie.

“God, this fucking tie,” McCoy mutters exasperatedly against his lips, tugging repeatedly at the length of pale blue silk. “Drives me insane.”

“I knew it,” Jim manages to gasp, and McCoy chuckles breathlessly before his fingers are plucking at the knot, loosening the tie before stripping it away from Jim’s collar. “You’ve got a thing.”

“Darlin’,” McCoy drawls, and fuck if that doesn’t go straight to Jim’s cock. “You have no idea.”

“What’s that supposed to mean—” Jim starts, then cuts himself off with a groan when McCoy shoves his hands up under Jim’s shirt, hot skin gliding against his own.

“Later,” McCoy says, and he silences Jim with another kiss before he can question that as well. “Promise.” He plucks at the buttons of Jim’s shirt, only managing to get through half of them before getting impatient and pulling it over the top of his head. “You still mad at me?” he asks, when Jim reemerges.

Jim rolls his eyes. “Of course,” he says. It’s half meant as a joke, but McCoy’s hands falter noticeably before he drops Jim’s shirt to the floor, and Jim has the sudden feeling that he’s stumbled onto something huge here. Something that possible needs to be investigated.

McCoy raises his eyes, his lips parting in unmistakable excitement, and he shuffles closer surreptitiously. “You mad?” he asks again, his voice lower, and Jim’s breath catches in his chest.

“You want me to be?” Jim counters, and oh  _God_ , he doesn’t know why this is turning him on so much. McCoy’s peeking up at him like he’s weighing Jim’s reactions, his eyes dark with sheer want as he fiddles with the buttons of his own shirt.

“What if I did?” McCoy responds, a challenge and a question and a demand all at once, and Jim feels something break with a resounding crash in the corner of his mind.

He grabs at McCoy, wrenching his shirt open and feeling the last button pop off in the process, and then McCoy’s chest is there, warm and heaving beneath his palms. He feels his fingertips catch at soft hair and makes a mental note to explore that thoroughly later before dragging his hands down to McCoy’s abdomen, thumbing at the cut of his abs.

McCoy gives a faint moan at the rough handling, his breaths heavy and uneven, and he clutches at Jim’s forearms with surprising strength. “Don’t stop,” he says, when Jim glances at him questioningly. “God, don’t stop.”

“Fuck,” Jim says weakly, and then he descends on McCoy, mouthing at his bare neck, grunting approvingly when McCoy hums and grasps at him, tilting his head to further expose the length of his throat.

“Yes,” McCoy murmurs, his voice shaking beneath Jim’s lips. “Keep going, yeah…God, kid, your  _mouth_.” His hands slip free from Jim’s arms, dropping instead to his waist. Jim can feel McCoy’s touch burning into him, feel every point of contact from his fingertips, and he grinds forward against McCoy, flattening him against the wall.

And suddenly, it’s like they’re back at the office, McCoy widening his legs to accommodate Jim, gasping and panting as they rub against each other. Except this time, McCoy doesn’t push him away. He tugs at Jim’s hips, arching up against him, swears that he’ll kill Jim if he stops, and Jim’s all too happy to oblige.

Somehow, they stumble and lurch to the bedroom without breaking anything, McCoy walking Jim backwards in a clumsy tangle of hands and mouths until Jim feels something soft at the back of his knees and sits down hard.

McCoy grins down at him, a flash of white teeth in the dim lighting from the hall, and he shoves Jim over onto his back, dropping to his knees between Jim’s spread thighs.

“Oh fuck,” Jim swears up at the ceiling when he feels McCoy’s hands on his waistband, easing the zipper down past his straining erection. “Len—” He struggles to remember something, something important he needs to say, but now McCoy’s pulling at his underwear and he hisses when the cool air hits his cock.

“Wanna blow you,” he hears McCoy say, his voice suddenly hoarse with want. “Can I?”

“Oh my God,” Jim says faintly, and he pushes himself up onto his elbows, reaching down to grab McCoy’s hand before he can take hold of Jim’s cock. “Wait. You haven’t…”

McCoy stares up at him wildly, clearly wondering why the hell he’s putting the brakes on now, and Jim’s cock agrees wholeheartedly. But there’s still something Jim hasn’t heard yet, something he  _needs_ to hear and for the love of God, he has no idea why.

“Tell me you’re sorry,” Jim says, squeezing McCoy’s wrist firmly. “Say you’re sorry for being an indecisive asshole.”

“Too many goddamn syllables,” McCoy objects, and he tries to lean forward to lick up the underside of Jim’s erection. Jim grunts in warning, drops McCoy’s wrist to press his hand against McCoy’s face instead, keeping his head away.

“Tell me,” he says, and McCoy glares at him helplessly from between Jim’s fingers.

“No,” comes the muffled, defiant answer, but there’s a deeper undercurrent that keeps Jim from calling the whole thing off. McCoy  _wants_  to apologize, the bastard. He just wants Jim to bully it out of him first.

“Tell me,” Jim says again, pressing his thumb against the corner of McCoy’s mouth. It slips in past that full, wet bottom lip, and Jim shivers when McCoy moans against his hand. “Just two words, Len. Say it.”  

“Make me,” McCoy says, his teeth pressing against the knuckle of Jim’s thumb as he speaks, and then he’s knocking Jim’s hand aside, taking advantage of his lowered guard to suck the head of Jim’s cock into his mouth.

Jim groans, long and low and shocked, and he sits up awkwardly to watch as McCoy nuzzles against his cock and licks at him, all the while making noises at the back of his throat like he’s dying.

“God, Jim,” is all McCoy manages to say, and then he’s bringing his hands to Jim’s hips, pulling him up into McCoy’s hot, eager mouth.

Jim leans back on his hands, spreading his legs wider as McCoy goes down, and down, and  _fuck_ , the man has a nonexistent gag reflex. “That’s—” Jim’s voice cracks when McCoy bobs up again, his hair flopping down over his forehead. “That’s so fucking  _hot_ , Len.”

McCoy hums smugly and slides his hands down to Jim’s thighs, pushing them open and keeping them there with his shoulders as he muscles forward and braces himself against the foot of the bed, hollowing his cheeks as he sucks harder at Jim’s cock.

He’s not going to last long, he knows, not with the way McCoy’s working his cock, licking and sucking and kissing like he can’t get enough of it. It’s a sloppier job than Jim half expected, but that only makes it better, the way McCoy gasps and pants for air.

“Stop,” Jim finally stutters out, when he’s on the verge of coming, and it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. For a long, wildly hopeful moment, he thinks McCoy is going to ignore him, but then he pulls off with a filthy, wet sound, lips swollen and slick and eyes burning. “C’mere,” Jim says, and McCoy rises up off his knees, stripping Jim’s pants all the way off before stripping himself. Jim swallows reflexively when he sees McCoy’s cock; it’s thick and long and so hard that it even _looks_ painful, and he’s feeling dizzy just imagining McCoy getting off on sucking Jim.

McCoy glances at him quickly, almost anxiously, before bracing himself on Jim’s shoulders and straddling Jim’s thighs. His cock pushes up against Jim’s, so hard that Jim feels it bounce against his stomach, his skin slippery with sweat and precome when he presses forward against Jim.

McCoy feels surprisingly vulnerable like this, gripping Jim’s waist tight with his knees and head hunched over on Jim’s shoulder, and Jim runs a hand down the length of his back in wonder, feeling McCoy shiver at his touch.

“Still want me to fuck you?” Jim murmurs, and McCoy nods instantly, his open mouth catching at the side of Jim’s neck.

“Please,” McCoy gasps, just one time before he swallows thickly and croaks out Jim’s name brokenly. He clings onto Jim, rocks his hips forward with a muffled whine, and Jim bites back a curse, gripping McCoy tight and rolling them over. God, McCoy feels so good under him, so right. Jim surges up, finds McCoy’s mouth again, and realizes abruptly that he doesn’t know his way around.

He tears away with a frustrated groan, slapping at the mattress. “Stuff,” is all he manages to get out, and McCoy shudders, like he’s snapping himself out of a reverie.

“Got it,” McCoy mutters, rolling over onto his front to stretch across the bed and fumble at the nightstand. Jim leans over to help, only to find himself transfixed by McCoy’s bare back, the muscles coiling and shifting beneath taut, shadowed skin. And fuck, his ass, the way it clenches involuntarily when McCoy reaches above his head—

McCoy jerks in surprise, his breath hitching, and he glances over his shoulder with difficulty. “Jim—”

“Mmm?” Jim mumbles distractedly, his hands still resting on the curve of McCoy’s ass. “What?” He spreads McCoy open, still not quite believing that he’s able to do this, and McCoy groans faintly, lifting his hips slightly off the bed. It only serves to expose him further, and Jim strokes a thumb down the cleft of his ass, his cock jumping when McCoy moans again.

“Fuck, Jim,” McCoy says, and then he’s reaching back to shove a condom at Jim, a bottle of what looks like stunningly expensive lube on the bed beside him. “You’re killin’ me here.” His accent is thicker now, the drawl deeper, and Jim’s so turned on that it takes him two tries to tear the condom packet open. McCoy stays on his belly, hands grasping absently at the sheets, his bare skin glistening. He quivers when Jim touches slick fingertips to the back of his thigh, trailing up to graze over his entrance.

Jim wants to bend down and lick McCoy open, taste every inch of him and take him to the brink of ecstasy, but he’s so close already that he doesn’t think he can last five more minutes, and judging by the way McCoy’s hips are shifting restlessly against the bed, the other man can’t take much more foreplay either.

McCoy makes a sharp, wounded noise when Jim eases a finger in, but he shoves his hips back against Jim’s hand demandingly. Jim’s stopped breathing altogether, every ounce of his concentration focused on the way his fingers slide inside McCoy with surprising ease, and something flips madly in his gut at the vision of McCoy working himself open with his fingers, maybe a toy, maybe as he jerks off.

“I’m ready,” McCoy tells him—snaps, really, but Jim can hardly blame him—and he looks at Jim over his shoulder again, his eyes more brown than green in the darkness. “Want to feel you in me, Jim.”

 _Well, fuck_.

Jim presses the head of his cock against McCoy, groans long and low when he slips in effortlessly. It’s like McCoy’s pulling him in, loose and pliant beneath him as he thrusts back and takes Jim in to the hilt. “Len,” Jim pants, awestruck and nearly blind from McCoy’s tight heat. He leans down, holds McCoy against his chest, and grinds forward. “God, Len, fuck. You’re so…you’re so…” Words can’t even fucking describe, and Jim settles for telling McCoy with his hands, his body.

“Harder,” McCoy gasps, his voice high and shaking. “Dammit, Jim, harder. I won’t break.”

“Fuck,” Jim swears, blinking sweat from his eyes. It drips down between McCoy’s shifting shoulder blades, and he bends his head to lick it away without thinking. McCoy hisses and arches back at the first lap of his tongue, and Jim tightens his grip automatically, pinning McCoy down to the bed.

McCoy startles him with a loud, quivering moan, going limp beneath his hands, and Jim slows instantly, peeling a hand away from McCoy’s hip to stroke up his back. “You all right?”

“Fucking hell,” McCoy says, his voice muffled against the sheets. “ _More_.”

Jim snaps his hips forward hard, and McCoy goes wild beneath him, until Jim has to lean down harder to keep him still. But that in turn only seems to drive everything up another notch, McCoy’s moans growing wilder, less restrained, thrashing beneath Jim’s hands like he loves it, and something clicks vaguely in the back of Jim’s mind, one piece of the puzzle settling into place.

“You like that,” he whispers in McCoy’s ear, his breaths punching out with every forceful thrust. “Like me holding you down, is that it?” McCoy gives an outright whimper, burying his face in the sheets. “No, none of that.” Jim reaches around with one hand, grips McCoy’s jaw and turns his face back towards him. McCoy blinks back, his eyes wet and glassy. “Look at me, Len. Show me how much you want it, show me—”

“Please,” McCoy rasps, tongue flicking out to wet his lips, and Jim feels himself faltering at the pure need in McCoy’s voice, the way he’s shaking and writhing beneath Jim like he’s about to fly apart at the seams. “ _Jim._ ”

“Say it,” Jim commands, digging his fingertips against McCoy’s jaw and keeping him from looking away. “Apologize.”

A flicker of defiance flashes in McCoy’s eyes, clearing them briefly, and he shakes his head as much as he’s able with Jim restraining him.

“Say it,” Jim repeats, and God, he’s never felt more alive than at this moment. He gropes down between them, grasps McCoy’s cock and squeezes it until McCoy moans throatily. “Say it and I’ll let you come.”

“Jim,” McCoy whines, trying to buck forward into Jim’s fist, but Jim moves along with him, loosening his grip. “F-Fuck, Jim, please.”

“Apologize,” Jim growls, fucking deep into him, and McCoy keens, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the bed.

“I-I’m…” McCoy stutters, his words barely coherent from the sobbing gasps of air he’s sucking in. “I’m…”

“Hmm?” Jim pushes his mouth against the corner of McCoy’s jaw, feels his pulse fluttering just beneath his lips.

“I’m  _sorry_ ,” McCoy chokes out, his voice cracking on the last syllable. “Fuck, Jim, let me fucking come. Let me—”

Jim groans faintly and tightens his grip on McCoy’s cock. It’s hot and wet and incredibly hard in his hand, and McCoy makes a series of desperate sounds as Jim strokes him roughly. The angle is clumsy and awkward, but it doesn’t take more than a few harsh jerks before McCoy’s crying out and spilling into Jim’s palm, his back bowing and his muscles clenching in a long ripple.

It takes him a while to come down, and when he’s finally lying breathless and sated on the bed, Jim’s so close to the edge that he thinks he might lose his mind. He braces himself unsteadily, ready to finish himself with a couple of thrusts, when McCoy suddenly shifts and pulls away, wincing as Jim slides out of his body.

“Len,” Jim protests, his voice so wrecked that he can barely recognize himself.

McCoy rolls over onto his back, looks up at Jim with darkened, sky-high eyes, and says, “Come in my mouth.”

Jim nearly shoots right then and there. He barely manages to peel the condom off, his cock already swelling and twitching, and he grasps the base of his erection, desperately trying to stave off his incoming orgasm. McCoy opens his mouth when Jim straddles his chest and  _fuck_ , Jim loses it before McCoy can even touch him. He groans as his orgasm rips out of him, tearing from the base of his spine and rocketing to every nerve in his body, and he nearly comes again watching McCoy lean forward and swallow his cock down, his throat working as he catches every drop of Jim’s release.

“Oh God,” Jim gasps, and he nearly collapses when McCoy gives him one last, hard suck that dances on the border between aching pleasure and stinging discomfort. He manages to fall over on his back beside McCoy rather than on top of him, which he’s ridiculously proud of achieving, and flops an arm over his face, trying to remember how to breathe again.

“You wanna know why I stopped?” McCoy suddenly asks, his voice raw, and Jim rolls over to face him. McCoy watches him back, the lines on his face completely relaxed. It’s a dangerously good look on him, this blissfully fucked-out thing, and Jim wants to see it again and again. “It wasn’t because we could’ve been caught. Though I wouldn’t have fancied that, either.”

“No?”

“No, I. I just.” McCoy pauses, blinking a couple of times. “I shouldn’t have…lost control. Not like that. But I liked it.”

Jim frowns at that, not sure how to take that. “Len—”

“I liked it,” McCoy repeats, slower this time like it’s something he needs Jim to understand. He reaches out and touches the back of Jim’s hand, and even though Jim’s exhausted, he still feels a flicker of electricity just from that tiny brush of contact. “Just wasn’t sure if…if you…”

Jim grips McCoy’s hand, scoots closer across the insanely soft sheets and kisses away the anxious twist of McCoy’s mouth. “I liked it, too,” he confesses, shivering just remembering the way McCoy reversed their positions against the wall, the way he sounded when Jim mouthed at his pulse point. “Maybe a bit too much.”

McCoy exhales, long and uneven, and the smile he gives Jim is completely open and sincere. “Good.”


End file.
